Bystander
by anna-garny
Summary: When I first noticed Colonel Sheppard hanging around the labs, I thought little of it... *John pursues a lab tech. First-person from her perspective. Rated M for later chapters*
1. Chapter 1

When I first noticed Colonel Sheppard hanging around the labs I figured that Dr McKay had done something idiotic on an off-world mission and being constantly under Rodney's feet in his 'safe place' was John's particular way of getting back at him.

Now, no disrespect to Dr McKay's intellect, but he's an arrogant son-of-a-bitch and it always makes me smile to see someone – particularly someone like John – put him in his place... even if I do get assigned a weeks' worth of night-shift data runs as punishment for laughing at our 'fearless' leader.

Totally worth it, though.

There are some good things about night shift on Atlantis, unlike on Earth it's rare that you'll be stuck in a lab all by yourself for hours at a time, there's enough insomniacs and military personnel that most nights someone will spot the lab lights and wander in to keep whoever is the current victim of McKay's temper company.

It really threw me for a loop when Sheppard showed up one night. It had to be close to three AM- my computer was telling me that I only had forty more simulations to run before my work was done when I heard the doors whoosh open and closed. I ignored it- the latest test results were showing some interesting readings and I was comparing the figures to some I'd gotten the night before, so I booted up another screen and called up the simulation to compare the numbers.

So, when John spoke I jumped so high that I almost fell out of my chair, the notebook I had been scribbling in fell to the floor and I think I may have screamed slightly.

"You're up late."  
"Colonel Sheppard! Don't _do_ that!" I exclaimed, hand over my heart as I turned to face him. There was a smug grin tugging at the corners of his mouth and he was slouching against a pillar, completely unconcerned with my overreaction.  
"Sorry, Mac, I thought you'd have heard the doors."  
"I did, Colonel, I thought it was Zane leaving."  
The smug grin became more pronounced and he pushed himself off from the pillar, crossed the lab and picked up my notebook, setting it on the workbench in front of me before pulling up another stool next to mine.  
"You know Dr McKay's not here, right?" I asked, flicking the notebook open to hunt for the sets of figures that I had been scribbling down before John had spoken.  
"Yeah, I could hear him snoring from the hallway."  
I paused, pen poised above the latest set of equations and tilted my head ever-so-slightly so that I was looking Atlantis' military commander in the eye. I didn't even have to vocalise my next question.  
"Couldn't sleep; walking around sometimes helps."  
"Your quarters are on the other side of the East pier."  
"Some nights I walk farther than others. Tonight I happened to see your lab lights on and figured I'd drop by to see what was so important that Rodney's assigned someone to work nights while he gets his beauty sleep."  
"Well, this is punishment, actually... for laughing at something you said."  
"Punishment?" Sheppard seemed a little incredulous.  
"The Mensa crack."  
"Oh, that's right. I told him not to take it out on you guys."  
"And when, in your experience, has Dr Rodney McKay ever listened to orders?"  
"Usually only at gunpoint – I see your problem – you civilian types aren't allowed to carry weapons."  
"Not out here, anyway. Back home I had a permit to carry, I sometimes wish it was transferable."  
"Believe me, you're not the only one."

He paused then, looking down at the notebook I had open on the desk, my round writing scrawled all over the pages, virtually indecipherable to anyone but myself.

"Not many of you use paper out here."  
"Yeah, most of the team like the tablets. I prefer real paper, it's easier to keep organized."

We sat in silence for a few moments until my computer beeped again, telling me that another run had finished. I scanned the results, nothing unusual jumped out at me, so I entered the next set of parameters and started the simulation.

"That-"John pointed at the screen. "Looks really boring."  
"Oh, it is. But it's also important, and the data runs take twenty minutes. Plus the parameters need to be changed at the beginning of each simulation, and we have to check the results before we change the numbers so that we can make sure that nothing blows up."  
"Twenty minutes, hey?"  
"Give or take. Depends on how long it takes before the simulated circuitry gets fried or shorts out. Some of the earliest runs only took forty seconds, but we're getting closer to the magic thirty-eight minute mark."  
"What exactly is this for?"  
"We're trying to create a portable shield, like the one down in the Gate room, which can be remotely activated from the Jumpers and applied to any Gate in the universe either temporarily or permanently. It's mainly going to be used as a method to limit Wraith movements to the areas that their ships can get into."  
"And hopefully kill a few in the process."  
"Yeah, that's the plan. If we can install Wraith-proof shields on a few dozen planets then more than a few Darts will get destroyed before they send cruisers or Hives to investigate why nobody's coming back from recon missions."  
"It might make them a bit more cautious about Gate travel in general – slow them right down." John observed, leaning closer to look at my screen.  
I nodded, checking the current run. We'd hijacked a few half-encoded crystals from a lab on the Western pier and begun reprogramming them to act as shield generators to install directly on Gates and DHD's.  
"Eventually we want to have this in all of the Jumpers so that we can activate shields wherever we go, stop anyone unwanted from following us."

He watched my screen closely as a sim-Stargate revolved, a glowing orange shield protecting the shimmering blue event horizon while a timer ticked over in the bottom left corner.  
"And they're lasting about twenty minutes, now?"  
"Yeah, about that."  
"So you've got eighteen minutes before you need to change the settings?"  
"Well, I have to check the output readings for any fluctuations in shield integrity and changes in energy output..." I drifted off as John's eyes began to glaze over.  
"Seventeen and a half minutes, give or take." I told him.  
"And the next one won't just start up automatically?"  
"No, I've got to change the parameters, then authorise it."  
"C'mon Mackenzie, we're taking a break."  
"What?" John was getting to his feet, smoothing his t-shirt and checking his sidearm.  
"Time for a break, Dr Mackenzie, come on, I've got a stash of popcorn hidden away."  
"McKay is going to kill me if these simulations aren't finished by tomorrow." I protested, knowing it was futile. There's not many people who can stop John Sheppard when he decides to do something, and I'm certainly not one of them.  
"So blame me. Tell you what, I'll come down here in the morning and if Rodney gives you any grief, I'll take the fall."  
"You'd better, Sheppard. I'm only on night shift in the first place because of your mouth."

It was only after I'd finished that comment that I realised exactly how bad it could have sounded to anyone eavesdropping and felt a blush rising in my cheeks.

"Come on, a few bootleg DVD's came in the last care package from the SGC – there were some TV shows in there and I snagged a copy of the Simpsons."

I glanced again at my computer screen, at the flashing '43' in the top corner telling me how much work I had left and considered my options. John took the decision away from me, reaching over and turning the screen off before I could object.

We walked through the dimly lit halls together, the city sleeping around us and didn't speak for most of the twenty minute journey to the other side of the pier. It was only when he opened the door that I realised we were at Colonel Sheppard's private quarters and not a public media room.

I paused in the doorway as he crossed the room, picking up a laptop and sprawling out on his bed before looking over at me, hovering near the entrance.  
"C'mon Mac, it's just the Simpsons." He pulled himself upright, setting the laptop to one side and beginning to unlace his boots. I decided that I was already in trouble as far as Dr McKay would be concerned, how much madder could he really get if I watched a few cartoons with Sheppard?

I sat down on the edge of John's bed to unlace my own boots, pulled them off and set them neatly to one side, turned and crossed my legs beneath myself as John powered up the laptop, brandishing the 'Season Ten' boxed set while the computer hummed to life.

"I believe I was promised popcorn?" I asked, taking the computer off him.  
"Ah, popcorn. Be right back." he handed me the DVD case and got up, rummaging through a box next to his wardrobe and extracting a bag of popped kernels and a bowl. The computer finished initialising as John opened the bag and poured its' contents into the bowl before returning to the bed.

"Wow, a bowl and everything! You're lucky that none of the guys from the mess have been down here to steal it back."  
"Trust me, I keep it well hidden." He plopped himself down on the bed next to me and I had to grab the edge of the mattress to stop myself from falling on top of him.  
"Want some?" he proffered the bowl as he leaned against the headboard, I grabbed a small handful before pressing the play button and setting the program to full-screen mode.


	2. Chapter 2

The following night I was back in my lab, running more portable Gate-shield diagnostic simulations when the doors whooshed open and a certain lanky Colonel sauntered in.

"Insomnia strikes again, Colonel Sheppard?"  
"Something like that. When's your next break?"  
"Well, technically this is all unpaid overtime, so anytime I like, I guess."  
"Come on, the second disc has special features."  
"Give me... six minutes. Rodney was mad as all hell this morning that I hadn't finished everything he'd assigned the night shift."  
"Did you blame me?"  
"C'mon, Colonel, do you think that I'd throw you under a bus like that? I told him that I'd taken a nap and my alarm didn't wake me up."  
"Oh, I'll bet he loved that."  
"Yeah, three nights added to my punishment. I'm here for the rest of the week."  
"So come and take a break."  
"I'll be able to leave in... three minutes. Do you have any more popcorn?"  
"Sure do. Tell you what, I'll meet you up in my quarters."  
"I'm right behind you."  
"You know, if you're not up there in twenty minutes I'm coming to get you."  
"I know, trust me, I know." John gave me a lopsided grin and left the lab, taking off in the direction of his living quarters as my computer began to beep at me. Damn, thirty-two minutes. I gave the results a once-over before adjusting the settings and starting the next simulation. As soon as it was running I picked up my notebook, gave the lab a quick once-over and followed Colonel Sheppard towards the personnel wing.

By the time I got to John's room he was sprawled on the bed, laptop powered up and a bowl of popcorn on his side table.  
"I was just about to come looking for you."  
"Oh, I can see that." John was no longer in full uniform – he'd shed his jacket and was down to BDU pants and a black t-shirt, his boots and socks in a pile at the foot of his bed.  
"Fine, I knew you couldn't resist the lure of cartoons and popcorn, not to mention my dazzling personality."  
"Popcorn and cartoons, you know how to make a girl feel loved!" I sat down at his desk and unlaced my own boots, setting them next to the bed before settling myself on the bed next to him.  
He hit the play button and grabbed the bowl of popcorn, but instead of just holding it out for me he set it down in my lap and scooped out a handful, keeping his eyes diligently on the opening credits.

We were halfway through the second episode when I noticed that John's position had shifted, albeit subtly. He'd allowed his torso to slide down the bed, had at some point relocated the popcorn to his side table and the computer to the locker at the foot of his bed. One of his arms was stretched above his head, behind my body. I'd moved, too, slid down the bed and settled almost flat on my back. We were touching in half-a-dozen places and I could feel his body heat radiating towards me.

Stealthy indeed... all that armed services training had paid off... I hadn't even noticed him moving until we were laid side-by-side on the relatively narrow bed.

I sat up, entirely too quickly.

"I really need to get back to work. McKay's going to kill me – or report me to Weir."  
"Oh, come on, he'd never do that, he's the one who put you on night shift, he should be supervising you." John sat up, too, as I swung my legs off the bed, my back to him.  
"Tell you what, I'll come down and keep you company until Rodney comes by, if he begins to get cranky, let me deal with him."  
"You know, you promised me that very same thing last night, but you fell asleep up here and I found myself alone while he tore strips off me this morning."  
"I promise I'll stay awake this time. C'mon, it's almost five- you should be able to get a few more runs in before he comes to check on you."  
"You know what Rodney's like, he won't be in the lab until after he's had his breakfast and at least two cups of coffee. We've got at least four hours."  
I grabbed my boots and pulled them on, feeling the mattress move behind me as Sheppard did the same.  
"You're really willing to risk the wrath of Dr Rodney McKay?" I asked, one eyebrow raised.  
"Hey, it's my fault that you didn't finish your work last night and likely the reason you won't complete your assignments for tonight. The least I can do is redirect his temper away from you."

I was genuinely touched.

"Bring the laptop- we can watch in between data runs." I told him. Running Gate-shield simulations was boring enough for me – and I'm an electrical engineer with a degree in physics. If the Colonel was going to join me I didn't want him to fall asleep in my lab.

He brightened up considerably at that prospect and shrugged into his jacket, before scooping up the laptop and DVD case to follow me down towards the lab.

It was around eight AM when the doors whooshed open and an irate Rodney McKay came in brandishing a coffee mug and a muffin, launching into a tirade about the lack of decent food in the city and prattling on for almost a full minute before he noticed that I wasn't alone in the laboratory. He spluttered to a stop as Colonel Sheppard leaned over my workbench to pause the cartoon we had been watching, and after a few seconds of a most impressive impersonation of a goldfish, managed to string together something vaguely resembling a coherent sentence.

"Colonel? What are you doing down here so early?"  
"Helping Dr Mackenzie with these simulations – we're up to thirty-six minutes!"

I have to hand it to John Sheppard, the man knows how to distract McKay like nobody's business. As McKay rounded my work bench to scrutinize my numbers, John closed the lid of the laptop we'd been watching and slid it into my top drawer and out of sight.

Rodney bumped me aside to get a better look at my calculations, sending me flying into Colonel Sheppard, who caught me by the upper arm and stopped me from hitting the floor while Rodney ignored us, scrolling through the data and no doubt searching for the misplaced decimal point that would render my entire nights' work useless.

Sheppard helped me to my feet as McKay completed his second scan of my simulations and I was so busy following the numbers on the screen and trying to spot potential errors before McKay did that I didn't notice, at first, that John's hand was still on my waist as I stood there. I turned my head ever so slightly to catch his eye, but his gaze remained fixed determinedly on the screen, ignoring me.

Or at least, appearing to ignore me – as I turned back to look at my computer I felt his hand move and two fingers slid beneath the hem of my t-shirt, the skin-to-skin contact sending a shiver up my spine.

I know John felt it, because he took the opportunity to move again so that his palm was at the small of my back and his entire hand was beneath the material.

After almost ten minutes of close scrutiny, Rodney had to finally admit that I'd made good progress without any catastrophic mistakes.

"That's great, Dr McKay. Can I please get some sleep, now?"  
"Yes, yes, of course." He waved a hand dismissively and picked up his coffee, turning his attention back to the computer.

I stepped away from John, not entirely sure what to make of the situation and left the lab. To my eternal surprise, he followed me.

"See you later, McKay!" he called as the lab doors closed. McKay virtually ignored him, concentrating too hard on his coffee and my computer to be bothered with human interactions.

We walked the almost-deserted halls, it was still breakfast hour after all, but the few people who spotted us did shoot us odd looks- the military commander of Atlantis accompanying a glorified lab assistant through the residential wing was sure to raise a few eyebrows. I was really hoping that most people would dismiss our proximity as coincidence and that nothing further would come of it, trying to think of possible excuses should anyone question why we had been seen together at such an odd hour.

I was rehearsing my explanations inside my own head when I realised I was outside the door of my personal quarters and automatically reached to swipe my hand past the controls and gain access. I turned to say goodbye to the Colonel and found him a lot closer than I had been expecting.

I opened my mouth to say, well, I actually have no idea what I was going to say. John forestalled me by pressing his mouth to mine in a brief but passionate kiss.

I was, understandably, lost for words.

"Same time tonight, Mackenzie?" he asked, leaning back against my doorframe.  
"Yeah, sure... see you then." I managed to stammer as John gave me a lopsided grin. He leaned in again and this time kissed my cheek before sauntering off towards his own quarters.

I stepped backwards, hand to my mouth, and the door slid shut. I crossed the room to my bed and sat down, knees weak.

What the hell?

After a few minutes of contemplation I decided that what had happened was likely just a hallucination bought on by sleep deprivation, put it out of my mind and closed my eyes in an effort to get some much-needed sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

I went down to the mess after managing six restless hours of sleep and joined the queue for lunch, spotting Colonel Sheppard seated at his regular table with Ronon and Teyla. He looked up as I reached the head of the queue, catching my eye and delivering such a swift wink that I wasn't sure if I'd imagined it.

He returned to his conversation with his teammates, I collected my lunch and sat down two tables away with my back to him, deliberately concentrating on what I was eating and attempting to ignore the raucous laughter coming from John's table.

I still had seven hours before my shift in the lab was due to start, so once I'd choked down some dinner I made my way back to my quarters and booted up my personal laptop- as I'd been in the second wave of personnel to arrive in Atlantis we'd had much larger allowances for personal effects, rather than a single item we were allowed a certain percentage of our total baggage allowance for personal items- I'd decided to load up my laptop and a few extra items of non-uniform clothing.

I was sitting at my desk, re-reading some proofs that I'd done back on Earth, trying to figure out the flaws in my calculations, when my door slid open.

"Afternoon, Dr Mackenzie."

I turned to see John Sheppard standing in my doorway, arms crossed and his trademark grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Afternoon, Colonel Sheppard. What brings you to my corner of the city?"  
"Just thought I'd catch up. Sleep well?" He moved away from the door, which closed silently behind him, and came over to the desk, taking a seat in the chair next to me.  
"Sort of, I never really can sleep during the day."  
"Yeah, me neither. Too much noise, plus people keep barging in and wanting to know if I can help with something, or wanting permission to do something stupid."  
"You know, you can lock your door. There's privacy settings on all the personal quarters that can be set to restrict access."  
"Really?"  
"Really – for instance..." I stood up and crossed to the door, pressing my hand to the glowing mechanism that usually opened it. I concentrated on what I wanted – which was the door to be locked – and there was a low 'thunk' from inside the wall as the lights changed from blue to red.

"So that's locked, now?"  
"Just like your front door at home. We can open it from the inside, which will unlock it, but nobody outside can get in. If we leave, it stays unlocked while the room is empty."  
"I'll bet McKay can override it."  
"Oh, I'm certain he could if he wanted to, but I honestly see no reason for Dr McKay to come into my personal quarters six and a half hours before I'm due in the lab."

Sheppard nodded as I retook my seat next to him.

We sat in silence for a couple of minutes, me idly flicking through my proofs and John watching my screen with vague interest.

"Are you going to explain about this morning, or do I have to drag it out of you?" I asked, eventually.

He looked at me, one eyebrow raised.

"What's to explain?"  
"Oh, come on, Colonel."  
"I think you can call me John, Anna."

That stopped me short. He'd never, in my recollection, called me by my first name – in fact, I wasn't even aware that he knew what my first name was.

"John, then." I said after a brief pause. "What was that all about?"  
"You mean me kissing you?"

Again, a blush rose in my cheeks.

"Yeah, that."  
"Well, isn't it customary for a guy to kiss the girl at the end of a date?"

I felt my eyes widen in shock.

"At the end of a date? Last night was a date?"  
"We arranged to meet up, eat something and watch some TV together. I came back with you to your lab and we hung out, then I escorted you back to your quarters. Not exactly a typical night out, but by Atlantis standards, a pretty good approximation of a date."

I considered this for a moment before realising that he was right. If we'd been two kids in college, then meeting me for popcorn and the Simpsons, then following me back to my lab to watch me work would have been considered downright romantic. The atmosphere on Atlantis was, to me, very much like college had been back home – everyone living and working in close proximity and a select few of the upper echelons in total control of the entire environment.

"I guess you're right, Colonel-" I stopped myself, remembering what he'd said earlier. "John. But I'd still like an explanation."  
He raised that eyebrow again, as if to ask 'are you serious?', before answering me.

"Well, I thought that it was pretty obvious."

I sighed. "Fine then. Why me? Why now? I've been on this base for two months – you met me the day after I arrived and until last week had barely said ten words to me, then all of a sudden you start hanging out around the lab and inviting me to your quarters. What am I supposed to think?"

As I spoke I saw his grin widen.

"What? What's so damn funny?" I demanded, standing up and stepping away from him.

"Well, to be honest, you're pretty hilarious right now."

I felt outrage rise in my throat like bile. "Hilarious! I'm hilarious, now am I? Just one big joke!"

"Anna, calm down! It's just funny that you don't think I could possibly be interested in you, when I've already proven that I am."  
"Oh." That stopped me short.  
"Look, how about you just stop thinking for a few minutes and go with what you feel, hey?" he stood up next to me and took my hand, rubbing his thumb back and forth across my palm.  
"Well, I guess I can do that..."  
"Good."

I was a little more prepared this time, but not by much. His lips met mine and I felt my eyes slide closed of their own accord. He kept kissing me for a few long, lovely moments, one hand twisting and fingers interlacing with mine as the other slid up my arm to my neck, his thumb drifting down along my jaw.

It took me a few minutes to realise just how surreal the situation was – I was standing in my quarters with my hands on the waist of Atlantis' military commander, a man who was essentially my boss and he was kissing me very thoroughly.

Then I remembered that I wasn't supposed to be thinking, threw caution to the wind and decided that I was probably going to get fired anyway if Dr Weir ever found out about this, so what the hell was stopping me?

My hands began to move of their own accord, sliding beneath his black BDU t-shirt and up his spine, sliding over the raised ridges of scar tissue he'd accumulated during his tours of duty both on Earth and in Pegasus.

A few minutes later he had walked me over to the bed and lowered himself onto it, lifting me so that I was straddling him, his hands under my shirt.

Sheppard's radio crackled, so close to my own ear that I could hear Rodney's tinny voice through the speaker.

"Sheppard, where the hell are you?"

John pulled away, groaning, removing his hands from my torso and tapping his radio with two fingers.

"What, McKay?" he demanded, his other hand on my jaw, his thumb running over my lips.  
"I need you in the Jumper Bay."  
"Can it wait, Rodney? I'm kind of busy right now."  
"No, it can't wait – Beckett's in surgery and I need someone who's comfortable with the controls to test the new systems. I told you about this at lunch, you said you'd be here!"  
"Dammit. Be there in five." he tapped his radio again, cutting Rodney off mid-sentence and sighed, leaning back on my bed and running a hand through his hair.

"You forgot about a test flight?"  
"Well, I had something pretty cool distracting me." He pushed himself upright again, kissing me once more before pulling away with another groan.

"Tell you what. I've got to go do this before Rodney comes looking for me, but we're still on for tonight."  
"Tonight?"  
"Same time, same place. Radio me if there's any problems."  
"Okay, okay."

He kissed me again, seeming to forget that not only did he have to leave, but that I was literally sitting on top of him preventing that.

After another minute or so his hands, which had been gently running from my hips to my ribs and back again, suddenly dropped to my butt and gripped, hard. He stood up, still holding me against his body, and one hand moved up my back to steady me, before he took a few steps towards my desk, setting me down on it before pulling away.

"Gotta go, gotta go..." he muttered, seemingly to himself, tugging his t-shirt down and scrubbing a hand through his hair again.  
"See you tonight, John."

He shot me a grin, ran a hand over his mouth and nodded before holding his hand to my door controls, pausing while the lights changed from red to blue before stepping out into the hallway and striding away.


	4. Chapter 4

That night I was back in my lab, running more simulations (despite his best efforts Dr McKay hadn't been able to crack the 38-minute mark during that day's available hours) and, I'm a little ashamed to admit it, I was watching the clock.

Right on 2AM, as if by prearrangement, the doors to the lab slid open.

"Dr McKay? Dr McKay!" To say I was shocked would be an understatement. Rodney was in his blue terry-towelling bathrobe, hair standing on end, eyes more than a little glazed. He looked almost as if he were sleepwalking. There had been a smile forming as the doors slid open and I had to swallow it in a hurry when I realised that it wasn't John coming in.

"Mackenzie? What are you doing here?" He seemed surprised to see me.  
"You assigned me night-shift to get these simulations done." I reminded him, trying to keep my voice level and gentle. I wasn't sure if Rodney was actually awake, I had extensive experience with sleepwalkers and knew better than to try and wake one.  
"Oh, so I did." he muttered, crossing the lab to look at my screen. "Any progress?" he rubbed his eyes with the back of one hand, tilting the monitor towards himself and checking the latest run.  
"Well, sort of. I've stopped the exploding part, but instead it just sort of fizzles out at thirty seven and a half minutes."  
"So we've still got a thirty second window to cover."  
"Looks like."

He stared at the screen as the last minute or so of the simulation ran, a rather nasty curse word dropping from his lips as the orange shield disintegrated just as the timer hit thirty-seven minutes and forty two seconds.

"I'm going to get myself a snack." I told him, and he waved a hand vaguely towards me, before returning it to the keyboard to make the necessary adjustments to the settings in order to make the shield last those extra eighteen seconds.

I stepped out of the lab, cursing internally. What the hell was I going to do? If Sheppard showed up now even the ever-oblivious Dr Rodney McKay would realise that something fishy was going on. I paused in the hallway outside the lab as the doors slid shut behind me and took a deep breath, considering my options.

After a few seconds of quiet contemplation I made up my mind, turned and headed towards crew quarters, hedging my bets that John would approach the lab from that direction.

I barely got two corridors away when I heard footsteps approaching. I froze mid-step, wondering who else was wandering the halls at this hour.

"Mackenzie? Is that you?"  
"John?" I felt a grin spread across my face as John rounded the corner, a laptop under his arm and a bag of popcorn in the other hand.  
"Yeah, I was just on my way to the lab..."  
"We have a problem."  
"Define problem."  
"Dr McKay just showed up in my lab, he wants to solve this problem and apparently couldn't sleep, so he's come down to help out."  
"That might be a problem." John agreed, switching the popcorn to the hand that was holding the laptop. He considered the situation for a few seconds before looking up at me.  
"Hang on, if McKay's just helping you, what are you doing out here in the hallway?"  
"I said I was going to get a snack."  
It was as if somebody had ignited a torch behind his features, he literally lit up.  
"Well, that's our solution!"  
"Huh?" I wasn't following. I'll admit it- I'm not exactly at my best at ten past two in the morning.  
"I'll escort you back to the lab. Rodney knows I love the odd midnight snack- it's perfectly plausible that you met me in the cafeteria and I decided to walk you back to the lab. C'mon, we better get him a snack, too, or he'll be grumpy all night."

I followed John through the empty, silent corridors towards the cafeteria and he loitered near the entrance while I grabbed two apples and a sandwich from the table, crossed to the cooler and pulled out some bottles of water and came back.  
"Okay, let's go."  
"After you, my lady."

It was difficult not to giggle as he sketched a bow, allowing me to walk ahead of him back to the lab.

"Oh, there you are Mackenzie, come and have a look at- oh, Colonel Sheppard, what are you still doing up?"

Rodney was a lot less surprised than I had expected, merely raised an eyebrow, barely expressing mild interest as he took the sandwich I offered.

"Just wandering the corridors- had a sparring session with Ronon earlier and wanted to wind down. I ran into Mackenzie over near the cafeteria and offered to walk her back up here. What'cha working on?"  
"Oh, uh, we've been running simulations on a portable prototype remote Gate-shield."  
"Sounds cool."  
"Yeah, well, it will be. Mackenzie, can you pass me that tablet?"

I handed Dr McKay the tablet he was gesturing at and took a seat on the opposite side of his workstation, John settled in next to me as I booted up the computer behind Rodney's and as I opened the plastic container around my sandwich he took a bite out of one of the apples I'd bought back.

"How close are you?" I asked as the start-up code ran down my screen.  
"Eight seconds off. If I make the right adjustments now, it should be fine."  
"Just got to wait thirty-eight minutes and see what happens, right?" John asked.  
"Exactly. Starting... now." Dr McKay hit the enter key and the orange shield blossomed on the screen in front of the pulsating blue event horizon created inside the artificial Stargate.

"And now we wait. Did you bring anything to drink?"

John tossed one of the bottles of water towards McKay who caught it awkwardly, almost dropping it, before setting it on the bench next to his computer and opening his own sandwich.

"You and Ronon were sparring at this hour?" McKay asked a few minutes later, his voice thick through the mouthful of bread and lettuce.  
"Well, we need to be prepared at all times. We've been having late-night sessions for a few weeks now, to improve our skills while we're tired or sleep deprived. Ronon tells me it was common practice on Sateda for soldiers to be kept awake for days at a time during their training."  
"Makes me glad I'm not a Satedan soldier." Rodney commented, looking uncomfortable at the thought.  
"Yeah, me too, at least the worst the Air Force makes you do is learn how to press a crease into your dress uniform trousers."  
"Not that you ever wear your dress uniform, do you even have it here?" I asked.

John looked at me sideways, but Rodney didn't notice, he was too busy concentrating on his screen and his sandwich to see the wink Colonel Sheppard threw in my direction.

"My blues got sent in when your group arrived- General O'Neill insisted that I have it with me- if I'm going to promote anyone then military etiquette requires that I wear the damn thing for the ceremony."  
"Do we even have the facilities for you to press a crease into those trousers?" I asked, genuinely curious.  
"Well, we did find the equivalent to laundry facilities down in one of the lower levels of a secondary tower, but I don't think that the machine we've been using to get blood and mud out of BDU's will be able to starch my shirt."  
"I had a suit sent in with you guys. Apparently everyone was ordered to have formal clothes issued or sent out, maybe we're going to have a cocktail night." Rodney commented, distracted.  
"Well, they didn't make me dig up my mess dress, and I'm grateful for that, so I don't think it'll be a cocktail night." John told us.  
"Mess dress?" I asked. Being a scientist I was relatively unfamiliar with military terminology. I might, officially, work for the US Air Force, but the finer points of their codes were still somewhat mysterious.  
"That one involves a bow tie and a cummerbund."  
"Oh." Enough said.  
"Yeah." John muttered, taking another chunk out of his apple, glancing over at Rodney, who had abandoned his sandwich and was concentrating all of his energy on the screen.

"Say, McKay, do you really need Mackenzie to hang around for this?"  
"What? Oh, no, no. You can go. Thanks for the sandwich."  
"Okay, well, see you tomorrow, Dr McKay."

McKay didn't actually speak, just waved us away before picking up the sandwich again and pressing a few keys to bring up the diagnostic screen.

"C'mon, Mackenzie, let's get out of here."  
"Right behind you, Colonel."


	5. Chapter 5

I followed John through the darkened hallways towards the personnel wing and we were about halfway to the transporter when he suddenly paused, a hand shooting out to catch me in the stomach and stop me in my tracks.

He turned to face me, one finger over his mouth, motioned for me to stand against the wall and then stepped lightly towards the transporter at the end of the corridor.

I stood, back to the wall, as John peered around the corner. It was only as he pulled back and stood in the groove next to me that I heard the footsteps that had obviously alerted him to the presence of another person in the hallways.

As the person came closer, John seemed to come to his senses slightly, and realise that he was in his home environment, not on another planet and certainly not on a Hive ship, and had every right to be walking the halls at two-thirty in the morning. He stepped over to me and took my hand, leading me to the transporter and acknowledging the Marine who was approaching with a curt nod. The Marine, obviously on security detail, stood at attention for a moment before John and I stepped into the transporter, as the doors slid closed I heard him resume his pace down the hallway.

"You forgot that this isn't a covert mission, didn't you?" I asked as he turned to the control panel, pressing the screen to take us towards the personnel wing.  
He even had the decency to look a little ashamed as he scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Yeah, I did."

"Good thing you're not armed."  
"Not with a firearm, anyway." he hooked a hand to the small of his back and produced his hunting knife, still in its sheath.

We stood in silence inside the transporter for a few seconds as John put the knife back onto his belt keeper, and after almost a minute we both simultaneously realised that something was wrong.

"Shouldn't the doors have opened already?" I asked, turning around to look for the control console- the cover had closed after John had selected our destination.

"Yeah, they should have." he murmured, stepping past me to wave a hand in front of the control console.

Nothing happened.

"It's supposed to open up, right?" I asked, waving my own hand in front of the section of wall that, by rights, should have retracted to reveal a screen indicating where in the city we had landed.

"Yeah, it is." John reached into his pocket to extract his earpiece and tapped the side of it. "McKay?"

A few seconds later I heard Rodney's reply.

"What, Sheppard? Did you get lost?"

"Not exactly. We're stuck."

"Stuck? What do you mean, stuck?"

"We're in the transporter. The doors won't open and the console isn't responding."

"Did you say 'we'?"

"Yes, Mackenzie's in here with me."

"Has she got her tablet with her?"

John looked over at me and was about to ask me about my tablet when he realised I'd already torn back the Velcro cover to reveal the screen, tapping on the tiny keyboard to wake the device up and automatically checking the battery level as the screen came to life.

"Yes, she's got it. What do we have to do?"

"Well, you have to wait. I'll run a diagnostic and get back to you, okay? If she's got her tablet then it should make things easier because she can access the control panel through the auxiliary crystals, but until I know why you're stuck you can't do much."

"So, we're stuck."  
"Yes, and you'll be stuck longer if you keep talking to me and preventing me from doing my work." I could hear the annoyance in my boss' voice, but apparently John didn't care.

"Well you better hurry up, I want to get some sleep tonight!"

He didn't get a response that time, I'm fairly certain he wasn't expecting one, but turned to face me after his radio remained silent for a few seconds.

"So, it looks like we're stuck."  
"Yes it does." I had shut down my tablet after noting the less than 50% indicator on the battery panel, and set it on the floor while John baited Rodney, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor- if the panels weren't responding to the ATA Gene then the problem would probably take a while to fix- so I crossed my ankles and settled in for a bit of a wait.

John sat down next to me, looked at me out of the corner of his eye and sighed.

"Well, there goes my plan for a romantic evening." he murmured.

"Romantic evening, hey?" I asked, deliberately avoiding his gaze.

"Yeah, there's this cute lab tech who McKay's been putting on night shift, I thought I'd surprise her."

"Oh, really?"

"Hey, being the guy in charge has some perks. I even managed to get hold of some non-military chocolate."

"You got real chocolate?" I asked, turning to face him properly.

"And wine. Wine from Earth, too."  
"Wine made from grapes..." I murmured. Sure, the Athosians made a half-decent drop from the berries that grew on the mainland, but it was nothing on a decent Australian Chardonnay. Real wine was a luxury usually reserved for visits from the IOA, or a particular grey-haired General.

"See, like I said, being in charge has some advantages."

"If you've managed to requisition strawberries..." I drifted off at the thought of fresh fruit that hadn't been grown in a lab, or bought back to Atlantis from a far-off world and subjected to rigorous testing before being made available to the general population. As delicious as some of the fruits within the Pegasus galaxy were, sometimes I just had a craving for fresh, familiar fruits.

"Not this time, but I'll certainly keep that in mind. Come here." he stretched one arm along the wall behind me and beckoned me closer, I scooted across the floor and into the crook of his arm, resting my head on his shoulder. I felt him lean down and press his lips to the top of my head and automatically lifted my face to his, kissing him back. Even though we were stuck in an Ancient transport device, in a city-ship floating on an ocean in the middle of another galaxy, I felt perfectly safe with John's arm holding me close.

He kept kissing me for a few moments, his other hand reaching up to stroke my cheek and after a while that hand began to drift, sliding down my arm to my elbow then back up, his fingers below the sleeve of my t-shirt. It didn't take long for his mouth to become more demanding, and I figured, well, we're stuck anyway, might as well make the most of it.

TBC!

AHA! I know I know it's cruel but I love seeing my stats go up and up ... reviews are love, and the next chappy will be up soon, promise! (and it'll make the M rating worthwhile!)


	6. Chapter 6

A big thank-you to all of my reviewers, favourites-ers and people who have put me on alerts, you make writing so much more fun!

Onwards to Chapter Six!

I know it might sound weird, but I was kind of praying that it would take Rodney a while to figure out what the problem was. If there's one thing that John Sheppard is good at its ensuring that time trapped in a transporter is definitely time well spent.

Those hands, I tell you, they can work some serious magic when he puts them to use. Sliding up and down my back, tracing circles on my skin, and after he'd pulled me over so that I was straddling his lap those hands started to get more demanding. He stripped off my t-shirt and titled his head back, letting me unbutton his shirt and push it back off his shoulders and down his arms.

I was sitting across John's lap, my t-shirt on the floor next to me and had my fingers hooked through the hem of his shirt, about to take it off over his head when John's radio crackled again.

"Okay, I think I've got it figured out. You still with me?"

John groaned, pulling his mouth away from mine and looking up at me, one eyebrow raised.

"Give us a minute, McKay."  
"What the hell do you need a minute for? I thought you wanted to get out of there!"  
"My tablet's only got 50% power, I need to boot it up. Give us a minute." I said, which apparently Rodney could hear.  
"Oh, great. Well, let me know when you've got it turned on."

John glanced over at my tablet, on the other side of the transporter before looking up at me again.

"You know, we could just pretend that you can't get that thing working."  
"You make a persuasive argument, Colonel." I managed to mutter before he pressed his mouth to my neck, at which moment most of my higher functions seemed to stop working.  
"Or I could just keep you distracted for a while, see how long we can keep putting him off..." John told me, his mouth against my ear. Both of his hands were on my back, keeping me upright.  
"The problem is, eventually he's going to fix this." I said, slipping my hands below his shirt and up is chest, thumbs sliding over his hard nipples, making him gasp.  
"Yeah, you've got a point." His mouth was still on my neck and the vibrations from his voice seemed to run down my spine, making me shiver. "But this is a lot more interesting than fixing a transporter that's on the fritz, don't you agree?"

I think I must have managed to nod, because his hands moved, sure and strong, tipping my head down so that he could press his mouth to mine, hot and demanding.

A matter of seconds later his radio buzzed again.

"Surely you've got that thing turned on by now?" Rodney snapped, and I had to stifle a giggle as John responded.  
"We're having some trouble with the tablet, it doesn't seem to want to power up."  
"Oh, great."  
"Well, can you fix this problem from there?" John asked. I was amazed at how level his voice was, especially considering the position we were in would normally cause a person some disconcertion.  
"I'll need to go down to the main control room, this could take a while."  
"Take your time, Rodney."  
"Hey, if I don't fix this then you two could very well be stuck in there until we get a plasma cutter down to your level, how do you like the sound of that?"  
"Oh, it sounds just peachy. Get us out of here, McKay!"

Rodney began to reply but John forestalled him, pressing his fingers to his radio before tearing it away from his ear and tossing it towards my tablet.

"Where were we?" he asked, his voice suddenly much deeper, a certain husky quality to it that made me shiver again. He kissed me, his mouth just as demanding as before, his hands splayed across my back to keep me steady. I leaned back slightly, tugging at the hem of his shirt again and tore it off over his head, dropping it to the floor behind me and returning my hands to his strong chest, tangling my fingers in the dark hair and catching his dog-tags with one of my thumbs. He was still kissing me, his hands still on my back, so I dragged the tags to the nape of his neck, pulling slightly to move his mouth away from mine.

"You know, we can't really do this here." I told him, not wanting to stop but knowing that if Rodney found us it would be better to be clothed than not.  
"Well we can't have sex in here, but we can make out a bit." he told me, craning his neck to press his lips to my collarbone.  
"Oh, well, I suppose you're right..." I drifted off, thinking about our options. I leaned down to kiss him again when-

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

"Dammit!"  
"Ugh!" I'd been so startled that I'd jumped off Sheppard too fast and thumped my head on the wall, and as I'd fallen back down my knee had come into contact with his upper thigh at high velocity. Another inch or two higher and it could have been very ugly, as it was John barely managed to grab me and stop my fall.  
"Are you in there?"

It was McKay.

"Yes, Rodney, you wanna maybe call out next time? You scared the crap out of us, Mackenzie hit her head!"  
"Well I'm sorry but I've been to three other transporters so far and you weren't responding on the radio!"  
"Hey, I told you which section of the city we were in!"  
"Yeah, and there's eleven transporters in the vicinity!"  
"Look, just get us out of here, McKay!"

I think I heard something rather uncomplimentary muttered at that stage, but suddenly became aware that neither of us was wearing shirts, and if Rodney's track record was anything to go by we only had a matter of seconds before the doors were open. I dropped to my knees and grabbed the nearest black shirt, tugging it over my head before turning to grab my tablet.

"Uh, Anna?"  
"What?" I was facing away from John, my tablet in one hand and his earpiece in the other when he spoke.  
"Can I have my shirt back?"

I turned to look at John and had to stifle a giggle- we'd both been wearing plain black standard-issue t-shirts, the problem was, his was several sizes bigger than mine, which became abundantly clear when he'd tried to put mine on. He was stuck, his head halfway through the neck-hole and one arm up to the armpit through a sleeve.

I stepped over to him and pulled the shirt up, and saw a sly grin flash across his features as he looked at me.

"You look good in my BDU, Dr Mackenzie."  
"Oh, really?"  
"Definitely."  
"That's a shame." I told him, putting my computer on the floor and handing him his radio before stripping out of his t-shirt and handing it to him.  
"It's a shame he's letting us out so soon." John murmured as he got dressed, picking up his over-shirt from the floor while I straightened my clothes up.  
"It is?"  
"Well, kind of. I can't exactly take you down to my quarters with McKay watching us now, can I?"  
"Says who?"

John stared at me for a moment, eyes narrowed, before he realised what I meant.

"You're seriously okay with your boss seeing you accompany me to my personal quarters at close to three in the morning?"  
"Hey, what's he going to do about it? Pout? Who says you're not allowed to have a girlfriend?"

He looked at me again, and this time I saw the glint of pure mischief that I recognised from knowing boys who'd been in fraternities back in college- it usually meant, back then, that something was about to get broken or there was a very large party planned.

Did I mention that this man is ex-Special Forces, or at least, fairly close to it? Because I had literally no time to react when he stepped over to me and pinned me bodily against the back wall of the transporter, one hand on my shoulder and the other on one hip and as the doors opened behind him he leaned down and kissed me very gently.

I could hear McKay spluttering behind him, but decided to close my eyes and let the chips fall where they may.

John broke away and turned his head to look at Rodney, I chose to stay out of it, burying my face in John's shoulder as he spoke.

"Do you mind, McKay?"  
"What are you doing?"  
"What does it look like?"  
"Molesting my lab assistant, that's what it looks like!"  
"Ease up McKay, I was just walking her back to her quarters and she got something in her eye. Can we go now?"

Rodney kept spluttering as John took my hand and pulled me past him, leading me down the hallway towards his quarters.


	7. Chapter 7

I stretched my arms above my head and opened my mouth to yawn, then paused, confused.

Two things- I was naked, and I was in an unfamiliar bed.

I closed my mouth and reached down to grab the sheet, pulling it up to my chin as I surveyed the room. I tilted my head up and saw a black and white poster of Johnny Cash hanging over the bed.

John's room, that made me smile and relax, resuming my stretch. My fingers brushed against something on the pillow next to my head and I grabbed it – a note.

- got called for a rescue mission on M3X-something, be back inside 24 hrs. X John -

I sat up in the bed to look around, noticing with mild amusement that my clothes from the night before were draped over the back of his sofa rather than all over the floor where they'd been tossed the night before. My watch, which I must have taken off at some point during the night, was on the table next to his lamp and I snatched it up to see how late I'd slept.

It had been a technological challenge worthy of McKay to figure out a way to make 12-hour watches run to a 27-hour day, but he'd figured it out and that meant longer days, longer nights and a jet-lag like adjustment to the system upon arrival in the City. The digital timepiece told me it was 10 hours past Lantean midnight, which meant I'd been asleep for probably six and a half hours.

Stretching again I strapped my watch to my wrist and got up, wrapping the sheet around myself as I picked up my clothes and considered my options while I got dressed.

What were the odds that someone important, or more likely, someone with a keen eye for a scandal, would see me coming out of John's quarters at this hour, in a semi-rumpled state? John's room was off one of the lesser populated corridors, but a good half-mile from my own room.

I'd hooked my bra up and dropped the sheet to my waist when I noticed that there was something missing from the pile of clothing on the sofa. Two searches through the pile proved my theory- my panties were missing.

"You sly dog." I murmured. The Colonel had either not been able to locate said undergarments, or had found them and hidden them somewhere in his room. I briefly thought about opening a couple of drawers in search of the black, lace-edged hipsters but decided against it and shimmied into my standard-Atlantis-issue dark grey uniform pants commando, feeling slightly wicked and very sexy at the same time.

Once I was (mostly) dressed I checked my appearance in the small mirror on top of John's chest of drawers, pulling my hair back into a knot so that it wasn't quite so unkempt-looking.

Wishing for a life-signs detector I hovered near the doors for almost a minute, noticing for the first time that the personnel quarters appeared to be basically soundproof. Eventually I decided to bite the bullet and waved a hand over the sensor, stepped into the (mercifully deserted) corridor and made for my own room to change my clothes and possibly shower.

I very nearly made it, too.

"UNSCHEDULED OFFWORLD ACTIVATION." came over the PA, standard procedure. I swore under my breath and raced for the nearest transporter, selecting the control room and stepping into chaos.

At this hour most of the staff were in the process of a shift-change, so there were people all over the Gate Room, Elizabeth stood on the balcony overlooking the Stargate, a pillar of calm in a sea of moving bodies. She was listening intently to her radio but her head snapped up when Chuck addressed her.

"It's Colonel Sheppard's IDC, ma'am."  
"Lower the shield."

The orange glow dissipated and a second later a blue energy blast - a Wraith stunner - burst through, hitting one of the pillars and missing a Marine by inches. I watched the Gate, careful to keep out of everyone's way, and saw Teyla come through backwards, still firing her weapon, followed quickly by Ronon, John and several Marines, one of whom was being dragged, unconscious, by his ankles.

"Raise the shield!" Elizabeth called across the control room and there was a fizzing noise as the shield was re-engaged. A few more stunner blasts hit it before there was a larger 'bang!' and the wormhole disengaged.

"Was that a Dart?" Elizabeth asked, looking down at her team.  
"Yeah, there were three of 'em. We got everyone out, though." John told her.  
"What about the villagers?"  
"They all got out, the last lot went through as the Hive came into orbit." This time it was one of the Marines who spoke. I watched as the medical team lifted his unconscious team-mate onto a gurney and wheeled him towards the infirmary.

"Okay, you all go get checked out, debriefing in one hour." Elizabeth told them. I saw John nod once before following the gurney out of the Gate room.

He hadn't seen me, I'd deliberately kept myself hidden behind a few people in the control room. I turned and left, slipping away before anyone could even notice that I'd been there and went back to my quarters.

I knew I should be trying to get some sleep, six and a half hours wasn't really enough, but I was too restless and worked up to do much other than pace my room.

Half an hour of walking the same line and I thought my head might explode, so I swiped my hand over the panel and went to the lab, determined to do something productive, not least to occupy my mind and hands while I waited for new information about what was going on.

I sat at my computer in the lab, feeling next to useless as I watched the simulated Stargate on the screen revolve in empty space, the orange shield pulsing in front of the event horizon, the timer counting down to the critical 38-minute mark - not even the great Dr McKay had fixed the problem in the wee hours. I kept flicking back and forth between the screens I had running, numbers and symbols seeming to blur into a mess before my eyes.

Why was this affecting me so badly? It wasn't like there was anything 'special' about the time I'd spent with John, except that it had rendered McKay speechless. I shook my head and concentrated on the computer, determined to stop speculating. Nobody but Rodney knew that Sheppard and I even had any kind of relationship other than a passing friendship, so I had no right to be asking what was going on, let alone a solid enough reason for showing up in the infirmary to see him.

"Mackenzie?" I turned to see Dr McKay coming through the door of the lab.  
"Dr McKay, what are you doing here?"  
"Came to see if that shield's up to time yet."  
"This simulation's almost done, it looks pretty promising."

McKay stood behind me to watch the timer run down and I felt the anticipation build as the timer passed 37:57- the highest number so far achieved.

It ticked over and time seemed to stretch as it approached the magic 38:00, those last three seconds took an eternity to pass.

At 38:00 the timer went green and the simulated Stargate stopped spinning, the whole screen went green and a large 'SIMULATION SUCCESSFUL' came up.

"Yes!" I almost fell out of my chair in shock as Rodney McKay caught me in a hug, a massive grin almost splitting his face in two. "I did it!" he crowed.

"You mean _we_ did it?" I asked, but he either didn't hear me or chose to ignore that, he was doing what could only be described as a happy-dance around the lab.

I rolled my eyes and chose to ignore him, turning my attention back to the simulation and going over the figures again. If we could configure a few dozen control crystals to do this then we would be able to cause some serious havoc.

No errors, no glitches, no problems of any sort- the simulation was fully completed with no glitches. Now it was time for practical trials to begin.

"Sheppard! Get up here! I figured out the portable shields!" That made my attention snap back to reality. That was right- if anyone was going to be trialling this technology it would be John.

"Who cares about a debriefing, get up here, this is more important! We're in the main lab!"

Rodney came back over to my computer and looked at the 'SUCCESSFUL' message plastered across the screen again and the grin was almost manic. He kept tapping buttons and checking figures for the full few minutes that it took John to get to the laboratory.

"Sheppard! Finally! Come over here and look at this!" Rodney grabbed John's elbow and practically dragged him across the lab to my machine and the two came to a stop directly behind me. Rodney immediately started prattling on about how brilliant he was and how his idea was going to rid the Universe as we knew it of Wraith, but I could tell John wasn't listening- the first clue I got was when a rough palm contacted the inch or so of exposed skin above my waistband, sliding around to my stomach as John stepped closer, on the pretext of looking at the screen his other hand came to rest on my shoulder and I could feel his breath on my neck.

It took pretty much all the self-control I could muster to not turn around and look at him- I knew to do so would be inviting disaster.

Rodney's voice seemed to become a monotone, a droning nothing that wasn't being filtered properly before the noise reached my brain- merely by touching me John had me completely unhinged. Definitely not a good thing. I could feel his chest rumbling- he must have been asking McKay a question, but again my ears failed and I couldn't decipher what he was saying- it was like they were talking underwater... or I was wearing earmuffs.

John's mouth coming into contact with my ear bought me back to reality with a jolt.

"Mackenzie... what are you staring at?" he murmured, his lips touching the edge of my ear, warm breath against my neck.  
"Oh, just looking at the, uh, simulations." I told him, my voice low but somehow level, Rodney ignored our conversation, he was too busy listening to the sound of his own voice to pay mere mortals any attention.  
"Right." I felt his lips curve into a smile. "How did you sleep?"  
"Best night's rest I've had since I got here." I told him, angling my face so I could meet his eye for the first time.  
"Good to hear. Aren't you still on night shift?"  
"Couldn't get back to sleep, so I thought I'd come give the team a hand."  
"You got the note?"

I nodded, then turned properly so that I could speak directly into his ear.

"And just in case you didn't notice, I'm wearing the clothes you left on the sofa- there was something missing, though..."  
"Oh, really?" he pulled back so that he could look me in the eye, and that sly grin was playing at the corners of his mouth, again.  
"Really." I nodded as I spoke and matched the grin, feeling the hand that had been on my side begin to slide down towards my waistband.

Rodney was still chattering away about how brilliant he was to have solved the burn-out issue and I somehow managed to tune myself in to what he was saying, just as he was taking credit for my work.

"...and, of course, it was my brilliant idea which fixed that problem!" he finished, turning to look at John, who was remarkably quick on the uptake. He pulled away from me and nodded to McKay, but his hands remained in place, the lower one sliding down further until two fingers hooked through the band of my pants.

"Just glad to hear that you've got it operational, but why did you need me?"  
"To fly the Jumper."  
"Jumper?"  
"Yeah, the Puddle Jumper! We've got to do a field-test of this thing before we make it standard issue!"

"And you want me to fly a Jumper into it?"

"No, no, no, no, no. I want you to take a Jumper to another planet, somewhere uninhabited, and hook up this shield system. The controls for it will be linked into the Jumper's, so you can activate it, or put it on a timer or whatever. You go somewhere, set it up and we open a wormhole here to try and send something through."  
"Like what?"

"I dunno, something useless- trash, probably, just to make sure nothing can get through on the other end."

"Sounds like a plan. When do you want to do this?" I was amazed at John's composure, he was able to carry on a complete conversation with Rodney, a coherent one at that, with one hand on my shoulder and the other slowly working its' way into my pants. No wonder he got court-martialled.

"Today, if not sooner."

"Well, you better put it to Elizabeth at the de-briefing, then. Speaking of which, aren't we late for that?"

"Oh, crap!" Rodney glanced at the clock on the computer and swore. "Come on, we better not be too late or she'll kill us..."

Rodney turned and went to leave, and had gotten halfway to the door when he must have realised John wasn't following him and turned around

"Hey! Sheppard! Off the lab assistant, now!"

John broke the kiss with a grin. "I'll recommend to Dr Weir that you get assigned this test-run, after all, you solved the problem." he told me.

"Thanks."

"I'll radio you once the debrief's over, okay?"  
"Sounds great." He kissed me again and I heard McKay make an impatient noise.

"I better go, or he'll throw a tantrum."  
"Bye."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"Dr Mackenzie?"

It was two days after our first successful simulation and a few hours before I was due to go off-world with ATL-1 and assist with the first live test of the portable shield. I'd barely seen Colonel Sheppard in the interim – McKay had kept him busy helping with tests in a Puddle Jumper and he'd been off-world twice, while I'd been re-running simulations with Dr Zelenka's team to make sure that there were no mistakes in our math regarding power levels and input for the portable shield.

I looked up from my notebook, sitting at a table in the mess I had been going over my personal notes on the portable shield tech while I ate. It was Zane O'Leary interrupting me.

"Dr O'Leary, how are you?"  
"Fine, Dr Mackenzie, is there anyone sitting here?" he indicated the empty seat opposite me.  
"No, be my guest."

Zane sat himself down and slid his tray onto the table, as he began eating I returned my attention to the notes.

"So, I hear you get to go off-world this afternoon?"  
"Yes, we're doing the first field-test of the portable shields, Dr McKay requested that I come along."  
"Rumour is that you're the one who solved the overload problem."  
"It was a joint effort." I said, careful to be diplomatic. The last thing I wanted was for McKay to think that I was trying to take all the credit for the new device.  
"So, you get to go off-world with McKay, to some uninhabited planet on the other side of the galaxy, to test something that for all intents and purposes is perfectly safe?"  
"Well, McKay and the rest of his team, plus there will be a team back here dialling in to try and get through, testing the integrity of the shield."  
"Must be nice, getting all the cushy assignments."

I heard a distinct note of resentment in my co-workers tone, and could feel myself bristling at the insinuation.

"Well, if you call five straight weeks of thirteen hour night shifts 'cushy' then you're welcome to it."

I snapped my notebook shut and got up from the table, taking my tray with me back to the kitchen before leaving the mess and heading for my quarters – going off-world would require, at the very least, a change of clothes.

I was just buttoning up the black BDU pants I had been issued when my door-chime rang.

"Ronon?"  
"You're Dr Mackenzie, right?"  
"Uh, yes. Why?"  
"Come with me."  
"O-kay."

Confused, but unwilling to disobey a two-hundred pound ex-Runner I grabbed my jacket and followed him.

"Um, where are we going?" I asked as we got into a transporter at the end of the hall.  
"Armoury. Sheppard wants you trained to shoot if you're coming off-world."  
"Oh. Okay." I smiled slightly at that, taking a moment to wonder if he'd run this past Elizabeth before sending his team-mate to take me down to target practice.

Arriving at the shooting range I spotted Lieutenant Cadman facing a set of paper targets, armed with a P-90. She took six single shots and I watched the targets, all six bullets pierced the '10' ring- she was very good. Once she'd disengaged the weapon she turned to face us.

"Hey, Ronon, who's this?"

I stepped forward and held out a hand, introducing myself as she shook it.

"Dr Anna Mackenzie. Great to finally meet you, Lieutenant Cadman."  
"Please, call me Laura. I didn't know I was famous."  
"She works with McKay." Ronon offered by way of explanation, Cadman nodded.  
"Okay then, what are you doing down here?"  
"She's coming off-world. Gotta learn to shoot, first." He was a man of few words, Specialist Dex.  
"Great! I love seeing the look on people's faces when the first fire one of these, it's classic!" Cadman commented as she removed the clip from her P-90 and set it down on the bench.

"We're starting small, today, Cadman."

Laura snapped to attention as John came into view.

"At ease, Cadman. We've been through this."  
"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

John stepped over to where Ronon was perusing the racks of firearms, lifting a small black handgun from the racks and handing it to me.

"9mm Beretta. This will be your sidearm, as a non-military member of the expedition you won't be given anything more powerful, but you need to learn to shoot this, and reload it."

I examined the handgun and pointed it at one of the targets, lining the sight up and squeezed the trigger three times in quick succession, landing all three bullets in the '10' ring.

"Oh, that's right. You had a license to carry back on Earth, didn't you?" John asked, squinting at the target.  
"I had to sell my own Beretta before I came out here, really pained me to leave it behind. Can I have a go at that?" I pointed to the P-90 in Cadman's hands and she grinned, handing it to me with barely a glance at John, who must have nodded.

I took the rifle from her and aimed it at the same target, but was unprepared for the kick-back and was glad I'd made sure that it was on single-shot mode before I fired – the shot landed towards the top of the target and the butt of the rifle felt like it had bruised my collarbone where I'd had it braced.

I put it down and Cadman laughed.

"I told you it was stronger than it looked."  
"Thanks for the warning."  
"You think you'll be okay with the Beretta?" John asked, not even bothering to hide his grin.  
"If McKay can handle it, I think I'll be fine."  
"Good, great. Well I guess we'll get you assigned a sidearm and you can go with Teyla to get geared up. Meet you in the Jumper bay in half an hour."  
"Yes sir, Colonel Sheppard." I told him, making his grin widen.

I just followed Cadman to the armoury, pretending not to notice when John, very subtly, patted my backside as I walked past. 


	9. Chapter 9

Thank goodness for inertial dampeners, is all I could think as the Jumper took off through the Gate.

I got the distinct impression that John had decided to do a little fancy flying, either to impress or terrify those of us who had never been aboard one. Personally, I was torn – it was certainly exhilarating but the speed was so great I thought I was going to lose my lunch if I kept looking at the treetops passing below, so I concentrated on the unusual cloud formations and tried to think calm thoughts.

I saw Ronon snickering and I'm fairly certain he muttered something to John about it because a minute or so later Colonel Sheppard turned in his seat.

"We'll be arriving at our final destination, soon, just had to do one last life-signs sweep of the planet to make sure it wasn't inhabited by some cave-dwelling people who've never seen sunshine. It looks like we're in the clear, here we go!"

Again, without inertial dampeners, I don't think any one of us would have remained in our seats, Sheppard took us in a large curving loop over the forest and a few minutes later the Gate came into view in the middle of a large clearing. John set the Jumper down quite close and turned in his seat to begin issuing orders as the rear hatch opened.

It took a couple of hours to set everything up, but eventually Rodney ran out of things to criticize and finally admitted that the new shield was ready for a practical field test.

"Fire it up."

The taller of the two engineers we'd bought with us tapped a few keys on his laptop before looking up to McKay and nodding, at which point the big man himself pushed the magic button.

A bright orange shield blossomed into being in the centre of the empty gate, covering the entire space in less than a second.

"Countdown has started." The short engineer announced, watching his screen. I had pretty much nothing to do aside from watching my screen for any unusual readings, and observe John and Ronon as they poked at each other with r sticks they'd collected from the nearby forest, Teyla watching on with benign interest as well.

John had just landed a decent blow to the top of Ronon's knee and the Satedan was about to retaliate when a strange whirring noise came from the direction of the gate. I looked around and had to swallow a fair dose of panic as the shield flickered once before vanishing entirely.

"What happened?" John asked, distracted. Ronon took advantage and hit him in the ankle, making him stumble as he approached Rodney, who was frantically flicking through screens of numbers to find the problem.

"It should be working, let me check the configuration-" Rodney shoved the engineers aside. Sensing trouble I made myself scarce, stepping back towards the jumper and extracting a couple of power bars from my backpack.

Rodney checked all the settings on the computer before going to the Gate itself and pulling the panel off the side, exposing the control crystals and extracting the new one we had installed that day.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me! Who put this in here?" he held up the crystal and I kept my mouth shut- I'd done the cabling from DHD to computers, I had no idea which of the two engineers had put the crystal into the Gate, but they'd both been fiddling around with it.

The taller of the two raised his hand, and a person who had a terror-struck-to-English dictionary may have been able to discern that what he was saying was 'I did it.', but it came out as more of a squeak.

"You put it in backwards. Backwards! There are arrows engraved on the damn thing that say THIS WAY UP and you put it in the wrong way! You're lucky the whole damn Gate didn't explode!"

The taller engineer seemed to shrink as Rodney continued to rant and rave, put the crystal back in and closed the control panel before coming over to the makeshift workstation and checking the computers himself before pushing the button.

"Timer has started, shield is live." He announced to the group at large, shooting another glare towards the engineers, both of whom were sensible enough to make themselves look busy, checking cables and generally keeping out of Rodney's way.

The shield was indeed live, and the countdown lasted a lot longer this time. Just over thirty-eight boring minutes later Rodney whooped and hit the kill switch before turning with a self-satisfied grin to look at John, who was still sparring with Ronon.

"I did it! Dial Atlantis, I want to test this with an active wormhole!"

"Okay, okay, keep your shirt on, McKay."

Rodney was practically dancing around the clearing as John dialled Atlantis, letting Elizabeth know that we were ready for a live test. The wormhole disengaged and Rodney reactivated the shield, tapping his foot rather impatiently as we waited for Atlantis to dial back in.

The chevron on the top of the gate suddenly lit up, and the rest followed suit in succession. We were all standing well back when the wormhole engaged, but what followed was wholly unexpected.

Instead of the 'kawoosh' being completely blocked by the shield, as it was in Atlantis and by the Iris back on Earth, the shield pulsed and seemed to buckle slightly. I heard a loud cracking noise and a wave of heat and light hit me- something had gone wrong.

A few seconds later the light dimmed and I was able to look through squinted eyes towards the Stargate, and what I saw made my mouth go dry. The shield was still occupying the space in the centre of the ring, covering the event horizon, but instead of being an opaque pale-orange colour it was an impervious dark magenta, throwing off a lot of heat and light. I glanced down at my computer screen and saw that virtually every reading I could access was well into the red.

I came back to my senses sort of slowly, and realised that both John and Rodney were frantically trying to radio Atlantis, telling them to disengage the wormhole as something had gone wrong. As I'd been given a headset for this mission I flicked it on and listened in, the responses coming from the Atlantis end were incomprehensible at best, broken and full of static. The shield, now drawing power from the active Gate, was interfering with communications.

I covered my eyes with my hand and tried to get a closer look at what was happening. The shield seemed to be settling down, checking my computer I could see that even though the levels were still red they were marginally lower than before, perhaps the displaced energy of the wormhole had caused a power surge? Before I could say anything though there was a crunching noise from the event horizon and the shield flashed again.

"No, no, no, no, no!" McKay shouted, pressing his hand to his radio. "Disengage the wormhole, repeat, disengage! The shield has become unstable, disengage!"

"Can we cut it off at this end?" John asked, running towards where McKay and I were standing next to the DHD.  
"I'm trying it won't respond, I think the shield is interfering with the connection of the DHD to the gate." McKay was frantically typing away on his laptop and I made an executive decision, shoving the engineers aside and unplugging all but Rodney's computer from the DHD in an effort to reduce the interference.

"Can't you just pull the control crystal?" Sheppard demanded.

"No, we can't. The shield is drawing power from subspace, it's too close to the wormhole, it's touching the event horizon, which means that all the excess energy that the shield can't absorb is being fed into the DHD."  
"So?"

"So, if you want to get turned into a lump of liquefied plasma by touching a live connection to a subspace power source, be my guest, but I prefer my molecules to stay aligned as they are!"

With a fizzing noise, the wormhole disengaged and we all looked over at the Gate. The shield was now a deep blood-red, no longer opaque, a solid barrier across the space that the event horizon usually occupied.

"Okay, no more wormhole. Turn off the shield so we can go home."

"I'm trying."

"Well, try harder!"

"Hey, give me a minute! I have to remotely disconnect the shield from the DHD then deactivate the shield without discharging the extra energy and blowing us all up!"

"You've got thirty seconds, Rodney, make it happen."

John stepped back from McKay, turned and faced me. The two engineers we'd bought with us were frantically packing away computer equipment and looking scared, but John brushed past them to speak to me.

"What the hell happened?" he hissed, his eyes darting back and forth between me and the engineers.

"We must have configured it wrong. Instead of being just in front of the event horizon the shield was actually touching it, so it was able to draw power from the wormhole itself. The extra energy that was displaced when it established would have fed straight into the shield, which made it do… that."  
"So how can we fix it?"

"Well, if we can get it to disengage then the power should dissipate and we'll be able to change the settings so that it's farther out and can't pull energy from subspace."  
"_If_ you can get it to disengage?"  
"Well, it wasn't designed to take this much power all at once- it draws the power it needs to stay operational from whatever it's in contact with, which was supposed to be the active naquadah of the gate. First we'll have to wait until most of the excess energy fed into it by the wormhole has dissipated before we can shut it off without an explosion."  
"How big an explosion are we talking about?"

"How fond of this planet are you?"  
"It'd destroy the _planet_?"

"You have seen a gate blow up before, haven't you?"  
"Well, yeah, but that was in space."  
"Well the naquadah that makes up most of the gate combined with a shield that spent close to four minutes drawing power directly from a galaxy-spanning wormhole is going to create a bang about a thousand times bigger than that."

"Oh, crap. How's it going, McKay?" he asked, realising just how badly this could go and rounding on the head scientist to fix the problem.

"Not good, this is not good. It's not responding to any commands. It looks like the safety protocols written into the DHD are preventing me from accessing any of the control mechanisms in the gate itself."  
"What about a manual disconnect now that the wormhole's gone?"  
"No, that wouldn't work. The shield's started transmitting the excess energy directly through the control crystals and back into the DHD- again, liquefied plasma if anyone touches them and that's the easiest way to manually disconnect. "

John sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"So, what's the plan?"  
"Well I can probably calculate how long it will take the power to dissipate to safe levels, and once the shield's back to a safe level I'll be able to disengage it, disconnect it from the gate and we can go home and start again."  
"How long will it take for it to be safe?"  
"I don't know, a few hours is my best guess, it wasn't connected to the wormhole for that long and the DHD's designed to feed power back into the planet's core."  
"Okay people, let's get comfortable- looks like we're here for the afternoon."


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"Okay, I think I've figured out how long it will take until the shield has discharged enough power that we can safely do a manual disconnect."

By the time Rodney came over to deliver this piece of news John and I were seated atop the Jumper, legs dangling over the cargo door. Ronon, asleep, was sprawled on the ground nearby, dreadlocks creating a crazy kind of halo-effect around his head. Teyla was on top of the Jumper as well, sitting cross-legged about halfway down the body of the ship, eyes closed as she meditated. The two engineers, whose names I still hadn't bothered to learn, had been huddled together over a computer for the two hours since the incident with the shield overload, only approaching the jumper to grab a power bar each before scurrying back to whatever they were doing.

"It took you two hours to figure it out?" John asked, not moving from his perch as Rodney shielded his eyes to look up at us. It was almost mid-day on the planet and we'd been away from Atlantis for almost six hours, now.  
"Well, it's very complicated, and I didn't have a lot of computing power to work with. Plus, I got a splinter."  
"So how long until we can shut this thing down and go home?"  
"You might want to get down from there."  
"How long?"

Rodney muttered something under his breath, kicking aside a few rocks as he tried to avoid answering the question.

"How long did you say?" John asked. Apparently his hearing was better than mine, because he sounded both suspicious and worried.

"Eight hundred years, okay?"

I'm fairly certain that if Teyla hadn't grabbed the back of John's vest at that moment he would have either fallen off the Jumper in shock, or leapt down and strangled Rodney in frustration.

"WHAT?"  
"Well, eight hundred and forty two years, Earth years, that is. This planet has a much longer orbit around its' sun because it's bigger, but still, we won't be alive long enough to see the power levels drop low enough to allow a safe disengagement."  
"Okay." John turned to Teyla and indicated that she should let go of him, at which point he turned and swung himself down to land in front of Rodney. Ronon, who had gotten to his feet after John had shouted, was approaching to see what all the commotion was about.

"Okay. We can deal with this. How far to the next planet with a Stargate?"  
"About twelve days by Jumper."  
"Well, we've got enough food and water, I suppose if we have to we can-"  
"One problem."  
"What!" John snapped, making me stop in my tracks as I climbed down the side of the Puddle Jumper with Teyla.

"Uh, never mind."  
"What, Rodney?"  
"Well, the Gate on that planet is in orbit."  
"So? We're in a Jumper, who cares?"  
"Um, from what I've got in these computers, it's crawling with Wraith."

The groan that came out of John probably could have been heard on the other side of the planet.

"Actually, I don't think we'll need to wait that long. I think I can fix it now."

One of the engineers had apparently overcome his fear of Rodney's wrath. In spite of the fact that the smaller one was tugging on his sleeve in a 'don't do that!' fashion, the tall one came over and stuck his chin out defiantly while McKay scoffed.

"Oh, really? And what exactly do you think you can do that will fix this?"  
"We establish an outgoing wormhole after we reconfigure the control crystals in the DHD manually, making the shield discharge its' power through the wormhole and out the other Gate in a matter of minutes rather than tricking out through the DHD over almost a thousand years."  
"How exactly do you plan on reconfiguring the control crystals? If you try and so much as touch one of them you'll be killed."  
"Not if we reconfigure secondary conduits. I think that the energy discharge when the wormhole is established will create enough of a power surge to damage the primary circuits, which will mean the system will switch to the backups, which we'll have reprogrammed."  
"Yes, I thought of that already, but according to the readings I've taken the initial power surge has created a completely different power distribution system within the DHD itself, there's so much energy in there that all of the conduits, both primary and secondary, are running hot. You can't touch _any_ of the crystals in that thing, at least, not if you like being alive."

John looked at the engineer, who seemed to be pouting, but preparing himself to argue at the same time.

"Okay, time out boys. Mackenzie, what do you think?"

I jumped, startled. I was the last person that I thought he would ask for help.

"Well, um. Give me a second. Dr McKay, can I have a look at your computer?"

Rodney handed me the tablet with a sigh, muttering under his breath. I scrolled through the diagnostic screens and came to a conclusion pretty fast.

"I think Dr McKay is right. From what I can tell the power coming from the shield is so great that it's using all of the conduits to get into the DHD and disperse. If we touch even one of them it'll cause a pretty nasty shock, most likely fatal, and we don't have the right equipment to remove any of them safely."  
"Can't we just shoot them?" Ronon asked, pulling his weapon out of its holster and spinning it by the trigger guard.

"Not if you want to live. The only reason the Gate hasn't exploded yet is that the energy stored in the shield is being dispersed into the planet by the DHD, being released in a controlled manner. Shooting the crystals would mean we'd break the circuits." Rodney explained.  
"Huh?" Ronon's eyebrows knitted together.  
"The Gate would blow up, then the shield, likely destroying the whole planet in the process." I said as McKay rolled his eyes.

"So, we can't shoot it?"  
"No." John told him, and the weapon was back on the Satedan's hip.

"I still think my idea will work. It looks like this secondary conduit isn't being used." The tall engineer was leaning over my shoulder to look at McKay's tablet and I pulled away from him as he pressed himself a bit too close to me.

"Mackenzie?" John asked, ignoring the noise of protest that came from McKay.  
"I still think it's a bad idea, but it's your call, Colonel."

John stepped back, eyes on his feet, and considered the options.

"Try it." he said to the engineer, who shot a triumphant look towards first McKay, then myself. I couldn't completely repress the shudder as his eyes roved over me, and I'm fairly certain that John noticed the look, because as the engineer turned away I felt him step up behind me.

"Who knows, maybe he'll zap himself into oblivion." John murmured, his lips close to my ear.  
"We can only hope. He's a bit of a creep." I told him, keeping my voice low as we all stepped away from the DHD.

Well, all of us except that tall engineer, who was carefully prying one of the panels away from the underside of the device and inspecting the crystals aligned in their ports, conferring with the schematic on his laptop and pointing at them each in turn.

"Okay, I think it's this one. I'm going to try it."  
"Get back if you like your eyebrows." Rodney told us in an undertone, and I was more than slightly amused when Ronon pushed Teyla and me behind him and John, leaving Rodney and the other engineer on the front-line.

**BANG!**

I honestly thought, for a moment, that the DHD had exploded and that death was imminent.

I looked up from my position crouching on the ground behind John to see that the DHD was intact, as was the Gate.

The engineer, on the other hand... wasn't quite so lucky.

He'd been thrown all the way across the clearing, coming to an abrupt halt when he'd hit the broad-side of the Jumper at high velocity. He was now in a crumpled heap beside the ship, smoking slightly.

After a brief pause we all rushed forward, John and Ronon grabbed him and laid him out flat, Teyla pressing a hand to his throat to find a pulse.

"He's alive, but barely." I looked over my shoulder towards the DHD and spotted a pile of something black and smoking right next to it. I approached gingerly, wondering what it could be. It was only when I got closer that I realised it was the remnants of his laptop, and when I noticed a single piece of cord stretching away from it I drew a conclusion about why he hadn't been killed.

"The cable must have earthed most of the charge." McKay muttered, standing next to me and prodding the wreckage with one toe.

"Lucky, or he'd look like the laptop right now." I commented, my stomach turning at the thought.

"Well at least it wasn't me, or you." McKay said. I felt a blush rising in my cheeks and opened my mouth to thank him – that comment was about as close to a compliment as McKay was ever likely to give me, but before I could gather myself enough to speak he had walked back to the Jumper, pulling out a tablet and starting to tap away at the screen.

Ronon and John picked up the still-unconscious engineer and moved him into the back of the Jumper, hooking him up to the emergency heart monitor and checking the rest of his vitals to make sure he wasn't going to drop dead on us. After a few minutes they had him settled and Teyla was watching him, her eyes flicking back and forth between his face and the monitors.

The two men came back out of the Jumper and across the clearing to where Rodney and I were bent over a pair of computers.

"So what's the new plan?" John asked, pulling himself up onto the table and leaning over to look at the screen I was working on.

"Well, Atlantis is expecting us to dial back in within half an hour, if we don't then they'll call us."  
"Meaning?"  
"Meaning we can probably send a message, maybe a concentrated data burst."  
"You did hear the radios last time, right? The shield is interfering with communications." John pointed out.  
"Yes, I know that, but I think I can put together a concentrated data burst with the same message repeating then enough pieces will get through that the whole thing will be decipherable."  
"Okay, okay, get on it, make up the data packs while we have some lunch."  
"Oh, lunch?"  
"Data packs!"  
"But I'm starving!"  
"Make the data packs first, McKay."

Rodney looked like he was about to object when I heard the distinct sound of Ronon's gun powering up.

"Okay, data packs."  
"Yes, then lunch."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Sitting in the back of the Jumper, we were waiting for Atlantis to dial in and check up on our progress. Being almost three hours past our scheduled check-in we knew that it wouldn't be long before they decided something had gone wrong, and were hoping that our data burst would get through before they decided to send a team through, or worse, our Gate exploded.

Thus, we were in the Jumper, planning on making a quick getaway if the power levels inside the shield went critical. John had turned it around so that the windshield was facing the Gate, he was sitting in the pilots' seat ready to take to the air as soon as the first chevron lit up.

It had been nerve-wracking for the first half hour, jumping at every single noise coming from the surrounding forest, expecting the Gate to light up and the shield to explode at any moment, but there's a finite amount of time that a person can remain at DEFCON 5 before your nerves get too frayed and a kind of numbness sets in.

Rodney had been munching on pieces of power bar for the entire time we'd been waiting, having finally been allowed something to eat when he'd shown John the completed data packs, the same message repeating four hundred times, including what had gone wrong, why they shouldn't dial in if they could help it and the co-ordinates of the planet we were heading to so that they could send the Daedalus to meet us en route.

The taller engineer, his name, it transpired, was Lawrence, had regained consciousness almost three hours after his high-voltage encounter with the DHD.

He was still drifting in and out, not really able to talk a whole heck of a lot, but his heartbeat seemed steady, and he'd accepted the canteen of water we'd offered him without complaint. The other engineer, Kevin, was proving to be less than co-operative.

"I don't understand why we can't just wait here for the Daedalus to pick us up!"  
"For the seventeenth time, Kevin, we don't have enough supplies to last that long. Our best option is to head for the Wraith planet and meed the Daedalus there, which is about halfway back to Atlantis." Rodney told him, sounding for all the world like a parent explaining to a two year old why they couldn't eat ice-cream for breakfast.

I was sensible enough to have moved into the front half of the Jumper, sitting in the co-pilots seat next to John and talking to him while Kevin tried to keep Lawrence awake long enough to get a second voice towards his objections.

"Maybe we should just toss them out the airlock once we're up there, pretend that they both got killed on the planet..." Ronon muttered from the seat behind me.  
"Rodney threatened to do that to me once, when I switched his espresso for a cup of decaf." I commented.  
"The way Rodney flies you'd probably be safer in space than inside the Jumper." John told me, keeping his voice low so that McKay wouldn't hear him. I couldn't help but laugh at that, as did Ronon.  
"You let him fly these things?" I asked, patting the edge of the DHD.  
"Once his gene therapy took I was hard pressed to stop him activating everything in the city. Dr Weir ordered me to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't crash one of them into the ocean."  
"Kind of makes me glad that I'm one of the naturals, it's been kind of cool to be able to 'think' things awake. I'm pretty sure that's why McKay put me on night shifts in the first place, he didn't want me to show him up in front of the peons."  
"Yeah, he doesn't like to admit that anyone's better at anything than he is."  
"I kind of gathered that."  
"How did you find out?"  
"I powered up a research station down in the western pier after he couldn't."  
"No, I meant about the ATA gene in the first place."  
"Oh, well, there were a few bits of ancient tech lying around at the SGC and I accidentally activated one when I was there for a visit. I got offered the opportunity to come to Atlantis three days later, which I think was how long it took them to increase my security clearance enough that I could even know about this place."  
"Sounds like a fun week."  
"Oh, it gets better. They tested my brothers after I made the machine light up. It turns out that we've proven the theory that the ATA gene is on the X chromosome, and I got it from Dad. They both missed out."  
"Brothers?"  
"You really haven't read my personnel file, have you John?" I was surprised. From what I knew about Colonel Sheppard he liked to know his team. I was oddly touched that he hadn't felt the need to check up on me.

"It's on my to-do list"  
"Maybe you'd prefer the Cliff Notes version?"  
"That'll do, there won't be a test will there?"  
"Not until the end of the semester. Plenty of time to revise."  
"Great. So, brothers?"  
"Right. Well, I'm a triplet. I've got two identical twin brothers who are about five hours younger than me. They're both on Earth, Alex is on SG5 and Andrew's on SG12. Andrew knew I'd been doing some work with Goa'uld tech in Area 51 and he got into Sam Carter's ear about getting me into Cheyenne Mountain. She had a look at my work and offered me the grand tour, while I was there I accidentally turned on a little grey laptop-looking device and two weeks later I was here."  
"You got the grey laptop to work?" John seemed shocked at this piece of information.  
"Yes, I thought anyone with the gene could get Ancient tech to work?"  
"That's the theory, yeah, but some things require a bit of input from the user. I spent half a day with that thing and it wouldn't budge- Rodney eventually decided that it was broken and sent it back to Earth."  
"Well, it worked okay for me."  
"Interesting."

At that moment Rodney decided to come into the forward part of the Jumper.

"Did I just hear someone mention Sam Carter?" he asked, looking a little flushed.

I raised an eyebrow at John, who just shrugged.

"I was just telling these two that Sam's the whole reason I'm even here- I met her when I was visiting my brothers at the SGC."  
"So these twin brothers of yours, how long have they been at Stargate Command?" John asked.  
"Well, Andrew joined SG12 three years ago, but Alex only moved to Colorado around Christmas."

"Cool. What do they think of their big sister working in another galaxy?"  
"Alex threatened to shoot me with a Zat if I didn't come out here, he's been itching for a chance to come see Atlantis. Andrew wasn't so keen, but came around pretty fast when Alex showed him some of the technology that came back the first time."  
"The Gate's lighting up." Ronon put in, an instant later the drive pods hand engaged and we were hovering about a hundred feet above the clearing, watching as the wormhole engaged.

The instant the connection was established Rodney hit the transmit button to send our data packs through and the shield began to throb, getting brighter the longer the connection was maintained. I was really hoping that the Atlantis base would leave their own shield active during their attempted connection, or would at least raise it when they realised the only contact from us was a fragmented pack of data with the same message repeating a few hundred times.

"Get us out of here, it's going critical!" I shouted over the noise of the engines, watching as every single reading on my screen shot into the high end of the red. John wrenched the steering array upwards and pulled us into a steep ascent towards the edge of the atmosphere.

We barely made it.

The strength of the explosion buffeted us as we broke atmosphere and entered space. John couldn't help himself, he spun the Jumper through 180 degrees so that we could watch what was happening as we entered a low orbit.

The explosion was terrific. We'd missed the ignition, but saw the remainder of the subsequent explosions as the shield lit up the Gate and a fireball engulfed the surrounding forest, sending a plume of black smoke across the surface of the planet as we began to drift.


	12. Chapter 12

I was kind of disappointed that we couldn't just hang around while the rest of the planet exploded, but after we'd spent two or three minutes drifting in the outer atmosphere McKay started to get antsy and insisted that we leave before we were incinerated.

It wasn't until we were exiting the solar system that anyone spoke again, and of all people it was Ronon who broke the silence.

"So, how long until we get to this Wraith planet?" he asked, stretching in his seat.

"About a week, but we're twenty-nine hours out from our first stopover, there's a habitable planet in the next solar system that we're pausing on for about twelve hours to give the solar cells time to recharge, and to see if we can collect some water, maybe even something edible to supplement the supplies in here. The Daedalus can get to the Wraith planet in about eight days of hyperspace from Atlantis, which means they'll be waiting for us just outside of sensor range."

"I still don't understand why we can't just wait on this first planet for the Daedalus to get to us." Kevin muttered, tapping away at the screen on his tablet, presumably recording all of his grievances for a more comprehensive report on all of us before we got back home.

"Because we've only got enough supplies to last us a week or so and it would take Daedalus eleven days to reach that planet, so unless you want to go really hungry for two days, we're meeting them halfway."

"I thought these things were designed to last for weeks floating in space!"

"Yes, with four passengers, not seven, and certainly not one who's recently been electrocuted, which means we double our food, water and energy requirements. Even if we drop our consumption to just enough to stave off hypothermia, starvation or dehydration we'd still only last eight or nine days at the most before one of us died. Most likely him." McKay punctuated that sentence with a nod towards a still-unconscious Lawrence, making Kevin grimace.

I turned in my seat, ignoring them as Kevin opened his mouth to object once more, instead leaning forward to watch the vast emptiness around us as we entered the void between solar systems.

I'd hijacked what was apparently Rodney's usual spot directly behind John, leaving him in the back half of the Jumper with Kevin and Lawrence, Ronon in the co-pilots seat and Teyla behind him, alternately checking on Lawrence's vital signs and closing her eyes, presumably to meditate. Ronon, once he had his answer about where we were going, unhooked his weapons and began to clean them, precise and methodical in his movements as he shined his sword before turning his attention to the large handgun that was never far from him.

John seemed extremely at home behind the controls of the Jumper, a natural pilot, he seemed less than eager to engage the autopilot system and let the ship take us to our first stopover, preferring to keep at least one hand on the controls. I edged forward in my seat, resting one hand on the back of John's chair, and wondered idly what we were going to pass before we reached our destination.

The HUD popped up, covering most of the windshield and making John jump.

"Oh! Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean, I think, I mean, I think I did that- I was just wondering what we're going to go past before we get to the next planet, I'm sorry!" I felt a blush rising in my cheeks, highly embarrassed that I'd accidentally activated yet another piece of Ancient tech that I had no reason to be interacting with.

"Hey, it's okay Mackenzie, you just startled me, is all. You want to take the controls for a while? It's not like there's anything you can run into out here, and I could use a break."

"How come she gets to fly this thing? You told me that nobody but you was allowed to pilot after my last landing!"

"No, Rodney, I said that I'd never let you fly another Jumper while I was on board after you almost crashed us into the side of the tower."

McKay huffed at that before returning his attention to his tablet, flicking through screens and muttering to himself about fly-boys. I could be mistaken, but I think I may have heard him say something about 'Kirk', then again, I wasn't really paying much attention.

Ronon and Teyla were having a quiet conversation as John got out of the pilots' seat, offering me the controls with a smile. I took the seat, nerves fluttering in my stomach, and reached out for the steering controls with shaking hands.

Sheppard must have noticed, because before I'd actually touched them he'd moved slightly so that he was leaning over my seat, slid his hands along my arms and covered my fingers with his, guiding my hands over the control mechanisms and murmuring instructions in my ear.

"Think about what you want the ship to do. You've got the gene, you just have to use it. This thing's pretty intuitive, it should respond to anything you want it to do."

I thought about the HUD, and wanted to know some more information about where we were going, how we were getting there. The HUD changed what it was displaying, suddenly instead of a map of the current solar system it was a velocity approximation, as well as a bearing in four dimensions regarding our location and the direction we were heading. I expanded the search, pulling the map view out as I thought about where Atlantis was, relative

to us, and the map seemed to zoom out and a beacon appeared, flashing blue, about two-thirds of the way across the solar sytem.

"That's Lantea?" I asked, pointing at the beacon.

"Yeah, the Jumpers have pretty impressive galactic maps, considering they were never designed for interstellar travel."

"That's why we've got to stop a few times, yeah?" I asked, turning my attention to John and realising just how close he was leaning. I tilted my head slightly to see if anyone else had noticed. Sure, McKay knew that we'd been stuck in a transporter together at three AM, and that Sheppard had been hanging around the labs a lot lately, but knowing McKay he'd just think that John was interested in the current project- sometimes Rodney's social ineptitude staggered me.

Telya and Ronon, on the other hand, were certain to notice the difference in the atmosphere as John spoke to me, his voice hushed, guiding me through the HUD screens and showing me how to check on the various systems. I felt myself turning red again as he shifted his body so that one arm was draped over my shoulders, between my neck and the chair, the other dropped from my wrist to my knee.

"Is there anything to eat?" Ronon asked, directing the question at Rodney.

"What happened to rationing?" Kevin demanded, standing up. I had to bite my lip to restrain a giggle when he hit the top of his head on the gear hanging from the roof.

"None of us have eaten since lunch, that was eight hours ago. What do you think, Sheppard? Time to open up the ration packs?"

"How many have we got?" John asked, turning to face McKay as he pulled a black box down from the rack.

"Uh, forty. Looks like there's enough for one per person for ten days if it was a standard four-man team. With seven of us, we're going to have to split them."

"Well, who's got what in their packs? Didn't we have extra with us because we were going to be on the planet for a week?" I asked, that I had at least a few bits and pieces in my own backpack which was carefully stowed under the seat behind me. "At least we can supplement the emergency stuff a bit."

"You know, I had completely forgotten about your packs?" John told me, reaching down to grab it. "What's in here?" He went to open the top of the pack, leaving me to my own devices with the controls of the Jumper as he dug through it.

"Some food, at least a few days' worth, a couple of canteens of water, some spare clothes and my notes."

"Excellent. That means that I can do this!" John reached over to where was standing between the two compartments of the Jumper and gave him a firm shove, sending him flying into

the back half of the ship, barreling into Rodney. I barely glimpsed the two of them sprawled on the floor before Sheppard hit another button and the door between the two compartments slammed shut.

"Sheppard! SHEPPARD! OPEN THIS DOOR!" Rodney was on his feet and apparently very upset, thumping on the door as he shouted.

"No, I don't think I will." John called, "I think I'll just spend the next day or so up here with Mackenzie. See you when we land!" He tapped a few other buttons on the control wall and the sound of McKay's yells was gradually drowned out by some kind of ambient noise, not quite music and not quite static, it was rather relaxing.

In spite of the fact that I was ready to strangle Sheppard, I appreciated the music not only because it was nice, but because it was drowning out McKay's complaints.

"John, what the hell are you doing?" I asked, both hands still on the controls, twisting in my seat to try and figure out what was going on.

"Getting us a little privacy for the next twenty seven and a half hours. You do know that we found some info about these being used to transport prisoners in the Ancient database, right? They're fully self contained back there, and I've disabled the controls in the cargo hold."

"McKay is going to kill you." was really the only comment that I could think of that really summed up what was going on.

"I'll risk it. Here, let me put the auto-pilot on." he leaned over me and pressed a few buttons, the HUD disappeared and there was a subtle change in the music. The lighting changed, too, going from a harsh bluish-white to a softer yellow colour, and the windshield seemed to become more opaque-the stars looked fuzzy around the edges.

It didn't take a genius to figure out what he was up to, the problem was that I wasn't entirely certain that I was comfortable with the situation.

"John, what are you doing?" I asked, backing away towards the wall, pressing myself against it as he rummaged through my backpack, extracting a ration pack and sitting down in the pilots' seat, tearing it open as he spun to face me.

"Like I said, getting us some privacy, I figure we've got a day and a bit to kill, why should we have to put up with the rest of them for the duration?"

"It's not really all that fair to the others to shut them in the back of the Jumper without any warning."

"Oh, they'll get over it. Besides, you know I'd have gotten sick of McKay eventually and at the very least shut him out before we got to the planet."

"Nice abuse of power, Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard." I said, sitting down opposite him and taking the ration pack out of his hands before he could dig into it, putting it aside.

"This is all kinds of inappropriate, John. You really can't expect me to be okay with you locking your team in the back of a Jumper so that we can make out."

John looked at me for a moment, before dropping his gaze to his boots. When he looked up again I had to resist the urge to smack him one- he had dropped his bottom lip like a two-year-old and was giving me a wide-eyed stare from beneath his spiky hair.

"I was just trying to be romantic..." he muttered, poking the lip out even further and crocodile tears welling up.

I sighed, picking up the ration pack and pulling out one of the power bars.

"You are so lucky that you've got that adorable hair." I told him as I tore the wrapper off and tossed the rest of the rations towards him.

The speed at which his face split into a grin was almost comical, he caught the ration pack and extracted something in a green wrapper, tearing it open and inspecting it before biting it in half and smiling at me with *whatever* it was smeared across his teeth.

I couldn't help it, I laughed in spite of myself, which just made him worse.

"Do I have somefing in my teef?" he asked, exaggerating the lisp and leaning towards me.

"Yes, and it's-aaahh! No! Ick! John! Get off, oh, yuck!" He kept coming, munching through whatever it was and giving me a series of big, sloppy, slightly sticky kisses before I managed to escape him.

"Okay, okay, I'll be nice. What is this?" he asked, looking at the label again. "Not bad, for something that is supposed to be beef flavoured it's surprisingly sweet. Want some?" he asked, waving it at me.

"Uh, I think I'll stick to power bars."


	13. Chapter 13

The remainder of the trip was, to say the least, fairly boring. After the first day, when John locked us in the cockpit for all of four hours (before McKay figured out how to override the controls from the cargo hold), we all got bored and rather sick of each others' company fairly fast.

Even though ATL1 spent a fair amount of time together off-world, they did take a lot of leisure time as individuals, and when we were doing nothing more than floating in space it became fairly easy to get annoyed, many small grievances quickly became large arguments, and more than once Teyla or myself had to intervene in order to prevent Ronon, John or even once Rodney from causing physical harm to either the engineers or each other. The cockpit eventually became a kind of 'quiet space' and before we had left our first rest-stop planet we had worked out a roster system that meant each of us would get to spend some down time in there before we reached the solar system that was controlled by the Wraith.

There were some concessions, obviously. Kevin was given a severe warning by first me, then John, about continuing to complain about our current situation. If McKay could get over it then Kevin had no reason to be so upset. He had continued to be less than happy, but after a few pointed glares from Ronon, and a demonstration of just how many concealed weapons the Satedan carried on his person at any given time, was persuaded to keep his complaints to himself, or commit them to e-mails in order to submit proper letters of notice to the authorities when we got home... if, of course, he still felt that the complaints were valid.

It took the better part of a week to reach the Wraith solar system, and as we came into the edge of the system McKay ordered me to start a survey of every planet within range, attempting to find a suitable place to sit and wait for the Daedalus, preferably not on the planet that the Wraith were using as a base.

"There's a moon orbiting the fifth planet out that looks like it was terra-formed a few thousand years ago. There's ruins and remnants of some settlements but no life signs."

"What about sensors?"

"It's just outside long-range sensor reach for the Wraith, but if Daedalus drops out of hyperspace near the edge of the system we should be able to get a message to them- the planet's currently on the Atlantis side of this system's sun."

"So, we have a base of operations. How far is it from the Gate?" John asked, leaning over my shoulder to look at the moon I'd highlighted on the HUD.

"About eight hours by Jumper, and from what I can tell the Gate is in geosynchronous orbit, if we time it right we won't have to be near the planet too long before we can dial home."

"If it comes to that." Kevin muttered.

"Which it won't, because the Daedalus will be here by this time tomorrow and weíll be on our way home." McKay told him with a glare, almost challenging the engineer to refute him.

Kevin was, thankfully, smart enough to keep his mouth shut after that.

John and I had been taking it in turns to pilot the Jumper, and I'd been amazed at how easy flying it had been for me.

"Set a course, Anna." John gave my shoulder a squeeze and I began to enter the commands that would land us about a mile away from the largest group of ruins on the moon.

Landing on the planets' surface I made sure to activate the cloak as we opened the rear hatch, Ronon took point, exiting the Jumper with his gun up and beginning a sweep of the immediate area.

Lawrence had, mercifully, remained unconscious for the bulk of the journey, but the few times he had been awake he'd been in so much pain that he'd barely managed a dozen coherent sentences before passing out again.

It didn't take John and Ronon long to establish a perimeter around the Jumper, and after we'd split a few ration packs, John decided that a little exploring was in order.

"C'mon Mackenzie, let's go check out those ruins. You'll be fine without me, right?" he directed the question at Ronon and Teyla, they both nodded, although Ronon looked as if he'd rather come exploring than be stuck babysitting a bunch of scientists on some backwater moon.

"I am certain that we will manage. Try not to get lost." was the extent of Teyla's input. Ronon merely grunted and sat himself on a stump a fair distance from the still-cloaked Jumper, his gun in his lap as he surveyed the surrounding forest.

John and I returned to the Jumper and he shrugged into a vest, hooking a P-90 to the front of it before grabbing a spare from the rack.

"Time to gear up, Dr Mackenzie."

"You're giving me a weapon?" I asked, incredulous.

"Hey, we're in Wraith territory, can't be too careful. Turn around, I'll get this thing adjusted for ya. Got your radio?"

I tapped my earpiece, making it squawk.

"Let's go."

It took us about twenty minutes to reach the settlement, a collection of single story buildings surrounding a large square, clearly it had been abandoned for some time.

"Looks like they left in a hurry." I commented, seeing doors off hinges, and the remains of a meal on a table outside a house, cups tipped over and a broken plate on the ground nearby.

"Probably a culling." John told me, nudging aside a few broken pieces of pottery with his boot before pointing to a nearby stone wall, a series of burn marks marred the stone.

"Wraith stun weapons."

"But there's no Stargate on this planet."

"Yeah, but like you said, we're only eight hours from a planet-based Hive. They probably thought it would be convenient to have a ready food source nearby, if for whatever reason they couldn't get to or through the Gate."

I grimaced at the thought. I'd seen photos and video of bodies that had been fed upon, they looked as though they'd been dead for weeks. I had no urge to see the real thing.

"What do you say we take a look around, see if there's anything useful left here."

"Like what? This place was probably abandoned years ago."

"Well, booze tends to keep pretty well, maybe there's a wine cellar we can raid."

"The tavern probably is a sensible place to start." I said, rolling my eyes.

We made our way through the town until we reached the larger buildings, the tavern clearly marked by the large signs outside, not to mention the many upturned tables, chairs and mugs outside it.

"Looks like the Wraith interrupted happy hour." John commented, pushing the door open. "Yep, definitely a culling. Check this out, looks like the people here at least put up a fight."

I stepped forward and almost immediately wanted to rush back out of there- a Wraith warrior, his mask still intact, was lying dead on the floor of the tavern, several arrows and a hatchet protruding from his torso.

"Don't worry, he's definitely dead. C'mon, we might find something useful back here."

I followed him into the building, careful to give the dead Wraith a wide berth, and we began to dig through cupboards, eventually hitting the jackpot down in the cellar.

Several wheels of cheese, still encased in protective wax, a few sealed boxes, closer inspection revealed that they held dried, smoked meat and several jars of preserved fruit that looked like peaches were tucked away in a chest behind some broken barrels.

Then John found the wine he'd been searching for. Just three bottles of the two dozen that the wine rack could hold were still intact, but he rescued them anyway, stowing them carefully in his backpack before we began to walk back to the Jumper.

Ronon met us halfway.

"Hey, what's going on?" John asked as the tall Satedan rounded a corner of the path, crashing into me and sending the cheese flying, knocking me to the ground.

"It was either come help you guys or shoot one of them." Ronon told us, diving into the underbrush to retrieve what I'd been carrying as John hoisted me to my feet.

"I can certainly understand that. Well, while you're here you can carry this." Sheppard offloaded the boxes of meat onto Ronon, rearranging the jars of fruit in his own arms.

"Is this food?"

"Meat, cheese and some kind of preserved fruit." I noticed that the bottles of wine were omitted from the list.

"Sweet." Ronon didn't hesitate, turning around and setting off for the Jumper at a run.

By the time John and I got back to the Jumper the others were going through the boxes of meat and inspecting the cheeses, dividing it up for our first full meal in over a week. It was kind of nice, as twilight descended on this tiny moon, just eight hours from a Wraith planet, to sit around a single lantern and eat real food, even if it was just cheese and dried meat, followed by a half jar of the preserved fruit each. By the time night fell properly, we were all feeling well fed and probably a little too content.

John had dug out the two-man tents that were part of the survival gear and we'd set three of them up in the trees near the Jumper, Lawrence and Kevin were going to remain in the Jumper for the night as it was still too risky to move Lawrence too far, while Ronon and Rodney would be in one tent, Teyla in another with John and I sharing the third.

We crawled in just as the last of the light faded from the sky.

"Hey, McKay, don't forget to send that message to Daedalus about picking us up in the morning!" John called across the campsite before zipping the tent closed.

"Of course not, Colonel. See you in the morning."

I woke up about three hours later to hear a strange, unfamiliar buzzing noise. John sat up beside me, instantly alert, grabbing for the radio.

"Ronon? Ronon!"

"We've got Wraith. Two darts just flew over, stay put, I don't think they spotted us."  
"Is the Jumper still cloaked?" John asked.

"Yes, McKay's in there with Teyla and the others, I was just about to come get you two."

"We're coming to you. Sheppard out."

I may be a scientist, but I know how to react in dangerous situations. As soon as the radio had begun to crackle I'd reached for my clothes, I was half-dressed by the time John turned back to look at me.

"We've got to move."  
"Gathered that." I told him, pulling my shirt over my head and tossing a pair of underpants towards the still-naked colonel. "Clothes might help."

"You know I never really sleep naked."

"Maybe I just bring out this side of you."

John grinned in spite of the situation and I smiled back through the fear rising like bile in my throat.

Barely a minute later we were dressed and John unzipped the tent, calling Ronon on the radio again.

"Are we clear?"  
"Yeah, there's no movement, come over to the Jumper."

Sheppard caught my hand and led me out of the tent, we skirted the edge of the clearing and approached the slight indentation in the grass that indicated where the Jumper was parked.

Ronon appeared, seeming out of the air, and we raced over to him, stepping into the back of the Jumper. John walked past Teyla and the engineers to take the pilots' seat, shoving McKay aside.

"What are our options?" Ronon asked.

"Well, either we wait here for the Wraith to find us, or we make a break for the Gate." Rodney put in.

I glanced at Lawrence, unconscious on the bench, and Kevin sitting next to him, terror all over his features.

"Welll, at the very least we're getting out of here. Hang on." John gunned it, lifting the Jumper off the surface of the moon and into a low orbit in a matter of minutes.

"McKay, did you get a message to Daedalus?" John demanded, turning it his seat.

"Uh- well, I tried, but I don't think they got it."

"What? Why?" Teyla leaned over the back of McKay's chair, concerned.

"Well, I activated the long-range sensors a few hours ago and, uh, I couldn't find it."

"What do you mean, you couldn't find it? It's not exactly small!"

"Well, it's not in this solar system."

"Wasn't it supposed to beat us here?" Ronon asked.

"Theoretically, yes. But that was going on the assumption that it was still close enough to Atlantis to receive a message from them when we sent our data-burst through and that they got enough information out of the packs to decipher what we were trying to tell them."

"What if they didn't?" I asked.

"Well, we blew up the last planet we were on."  
"So?" John was getting impatient.

"So, they'll be sending the Daedalus there, to see why they can't dial in."

At least McKay had the decency to look a little abashed.

"You're telling us that we flew for a week in the wrong direction?" It was Kevin, getting to his feet and shouting.

"No, I'm telling you that nobody in Atlantis was any good at jigsaw puzzles and they didn't figure out our message in time." McKay bit back.

"Basically, we're in a Wraith solar system for no reason?" Kevin demanded, stepping towards McKay.

"No, we're in a Wraith solar system because it was the next logical step after we blew up that planet!" John shouted, shutting them both up. "Right now, that space-Gate is our best chance of getting home in once piece, so quit with the arguing and try to think of a way to get past any Darts that might be guarding it!"

"What? You're taking us to the Gate now?" McKay's face is usually fairly pale, but when he realised that we were leaving the moon's orbit he was suddenly a few shades paler.

"What else can we do?" Ronon asked.

Everyone was quiet for a moment, realising that he was right.

"So, let's go." Ronon sat back in his seat, signalling the end of the conversation.

John turned his attention back to the controls as we passed the planet our moon has been orbiting, heading towards the Wraith planet on the other side of the solar system.

We'd been airborne for half an hour when the first problem cropped up- Lawrence's eyes began to open, and Kevin took it upon himself to appraise him of the situation.

"We're going to the Wraith planet." were the first words out of Kevin's mouth as Lawrence's eyes fluttered open.

Panic flashed across the stationary engineer's face, he tried to sit up, coughing and clutching at his stomach as he attempted to speak, presumably to object. It was all Teyla and I could do to keep him from getting to his feet while Ronon caught Kevin by the collar, dragging him into the cockpit for a severe talking-to from himself and Sheppard, the little that I paid attention to seemed to consist of them virtually tying Kevin to the co-pilots' chair as Ronon pointed a gun at him.

"What the hell was that about?" John demanded as Lawrence fell back into unconsciousness.

"I thought he should be made aware of the situation." Kevin said, lifting his chin defiantly, his voice remarkably steady considering that Ronon's gun was pointed at his throat.

"Oh, and you thought terrifying him was an appropriate way to do that?" Sheppard demanded.

"He had a right no know that was happening!"

"Oh, you are so fired when we get back to Atlantis." Rodney told him.

"You can't do that, you're not my boss!"

I stepped away from Lawrence's still form, through the bulkhead doors and between John and Kevin, standing next to Ronon and his gun.

"No, but I am." I put in. "As deputy head of the engineering department I am your direct supervisor. Due to extremely unprofessional and dangerous behaviour, not to mention multiple instances of insubordination, you are summarily fired. Upon return to Atlantis your employment with the IOA is terminated. Sit down, shut up and be thankful that we're not feeding you to the Wraith."

The silence that followed my little speech seemed to stretch, Kevin staring at me open-mouthed as McKay's smug grin stretched far enough that his face threatened to split in two.

"Well, now that's out of the way, Mackenzie, where exactly is the Gate we're aiming for?" Sheppard asked me.

Shoving Kevin aside – he was still doing a remarkable impression of a goldfish – I took the co-pilots' chair and consulted the HUD, locating the Gate and uploading the co-ordinates to the autopilot.

Ronon caught Kevin by the collar, tossing him into the back half of the Jumper as Teyla came back into the cockpit. As soon as she was clear of the bulkhead doors I closed them and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hey, how come I don't get a chair?" McKay griped a few minutes later.

"Oh, shut up." I muttered, standing up and stepping around the DHD to stand behind John's seat, trying not to let myself fall asleep – I'd barely managed two hours rest on the moon before the darts had flown over, but then again, so had everyone else.

It wasn't until Ronon began snoring behind me that I thought I should take advantage of the 8-hour travel-time and maybe try to get some shut-eye. I twisted myself in the space between Ronon and John until my back was against the wall, sliding down to sit on the floor.

John turned in his seat so that he could look down at me.

"Mackenzie, what are you doing?"

"Trying to get some sleep, why?" I asked through a yawn.

"Get up here." He held out a hand towards me.

"What?" My poor exhausted brain couldn't figure out what he was talking about.

"C'mon." He leaned down and took my hand, pulling me up off the floor and into his lap.

"There, much better than the floor, hey?" he murmured in my ear before pressing a kiss to my temple. I decided not to question a warm, pliable pillow that was keeping me upright and burrowed into his chest, letting sleep wash over me.

The best thing about sleeping through the trip was that it made the time pass quickly.

The worst was waking up to see a few dozen Wraith darts and at least four cruisers floating in the space around the orbiting Gate.

I opened my eyes to discover that my head was on John's shoulder, he was awake, holding me steady as I came to, moving a hand from my waist to between my shoulders as I twisted to look out through the windshield. I froze, horrified, as a Dart passed by the Jumper, almost close enough to touch.

John clearly sensed my fear, his other hand left the controls and caught me before I fell to the floor.

"It's okay, we're still cloaked."

"Oh, okay, thanks." I climbed down, stepping to one side and steadying myself with one hand on the DHD and the other on the back of John's chair, watching all the other spacecraft through the windshield.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

"So, what's the plan?" Ronon asked.

"We can't dial the Gate, not with this many Darts hanging around. Even sitting here like this is pretty dangerous."

McKay was right- there were so many ships in the immediate area that we were lucky nothing had run into us, yet.

"We need to create a distraction." John muttered, seemingly to himself, before looking up at the rest of us. "Any suggestions?"

"We could blow something up." Ronon put in.

"Why would you suggest that as a distraction? Who would run _towards_ an explosion?" Rodney had a point, but I was looking through the windshield over John's shoulder and spotted something on the surface of the planet below that gave me an idea.

"What if we made them think they're under attack?"  
"Oh, and how exactly do we do that?" McKay demanded, sarcastic as ever.  
"Blow up part of that." I pointed through the windshield towards what appeared to be a grounded Hive ship.

"That could work." It seemed that the more good ideas I had, the more McKay liked me.

"How much C-4 do we have?" John asked, dropping the Jumper out of orbit and taking us through the outer atmosphere, heading towards the Hive, still cloaked.

"You're going to make me check?" Rodney was incensed- checking the C-4 supplies would involve going into the rear compartment and encountering an apparently still-mutinous Kevin.

"Just do it, Rodney."

Twenty minutes later we'd landed about half a mile from the grounded Hive and had formulated a plan, of sorts.

Okay, so 'plant a half-dozen C-4 charges without getting caught, come back to the Jumper and get the hell away before detonation' is hardly a plan, but it was the best that we could really come up with under the circumstances.

Ronon and John took three charges each, leaving the rest of us with strict instructions to stay with the Jumper no matter what.

John had mande a point of leaving Teyla in charge, but he also handed First McKay, then myself a P-90 each, deliberately taking the last one from the rack and leaving Kevin unarmed.

"Keep an eye out for Wraith, and don't let him leave the Jumper, we'll be back in fifteen minutes."

I nodded, checking the clip of my weapon to ensure that it was loaded and that the safety was off. I glanced up, expecting to see John and Ronon disappearing into the forest towards the Hive, but John was still standing right in front of me.

"If he gives you any trouble, shoot him. We'll be home in an hour, just make sure you don't hit anything vital." He told me, leaning close so that Teyla wouldn't hear him.

"So, in the knee?" I asked, twisting my weapon so that it was no longer aimed at Sheppard's abdomen.  
"That would be best, plus, it hurts like hell, take it from me." His left foot twitched as he spoke, I felt it and realised how close he was to me, his leg pressing against mine. He grinned at me, before pressing his lips to mine for a brief but nerve-melting kiss. As he pulled away I opened my eyes, struggling to focus for a moment before smiling back at him.

"Back in fifteen." he told me, scrubbing a hand through his hair as he left.

Twelve minutes later, our luck seemed to run out.

My radio crackled and Sheppard's voice came through, ragged but hushed, he was running. I turned my back on the Jumper to speak to him.

"Get in the Jumper, get it started, we were spotted."  
"Yes, sir." I could hear that buzzing in the background – darts – and Ronon yelling to John that they had three chasing them.

"We'll be back in two minutes, be ready to shoot."  
"Yes, sir." I knew better than to question John when he was in Lieutenant Colonel mode, so I turned and pushed past Kevin, talking to Teyla as I spun the pilots' seat and took the controls.

"They've been spotted, John wants us airborne and ready to shoot, leave the door open and keep your weapon up."

Teyla nodded at me, stepping towards the back of the ship and gripping the overhead locker with one hand and keeping her weapon trained on the forest with the other as I fired the Jumper's engines.

"Get airborne!" John shouted in my ear. "There's three behind us, take 'em out with the drones!"  
"Okay." I closed my eyes, lifting the Jumper into the air and turning it 180 degrees so I was facing the grounded Hive just as John then Ronon came into view from behind some bushes, pursued by three Wraith guards. The pair of them ducked low as I fired the drones, blowing the Wraith sky-high and a few seconds later the pair of them clambered into the back of the Jumper.

"Where's McKay?" John asked.

"What? He's right there-" I turned in my seat and stopped mid-sentence. McKay was missing from the back half of the Jumper as was Kevin. Teyla had come into the cockpit as I'd fired the drones – they must have left just as I'd turned the ship around.

"Kevin." To say I was livid was an understatement. I stood up and John grabbed the controls before we plunged back to the ground, and I bought up the HUD, switching it to life-signs mode.

"There. Two, moving away from the hive at high speed, one just ahead of the other, come on Ronon, we're going after them." I still had my P-90 strapped to my chest and pushed past Teyla, jumping off the back of the Jumper with the Satedan following me.

"MACKENZIE! GET BACK HERE!" John shouted after me as we headed through the trees towards where the dots had been, bashing through the forest at top speed. I ignored him, listening for voices ahead of me and keeping my weapon ready.

Ronon overtook me about a minute later, motioning for me to get down as he paused, gun up, behind a tree. Two seconds later I heard it, McKay's voice shouting at high volume demanding that somebody stop. Ronon took off towards the sound but I was careful to hang back, keeping my eyes peeled and knowing that Kevin wasn't stupid enough to keep running – he wasn't fast enough to keep ahead of McKay for long.

I made it about ten steps before Kevin came out from behind a tree trunk, glancing over his shoulder towards Ronon and crashing into me, the pair of us went sprawling into the dirt, Kevin landing on top of me and knocking the breath from my lungs.

I didn't hesitate, even though I was struggling to breathe, I was sick of being knocked around and sick of Kevin's idiotic attitude. My knee, positioned between his legs, was lifted rather swiftly and I grinned as it connected to something soft, eliciting a low groan from Kevin and rolling him off of me. I got to my feet, keeping my gun trained on him and gave him another kick, to the shin this time, as he curled into the foetal position.

"What the hell is your problem?" I demanded. He didn't exactly respond, just groaned once more.

"Get to your feet, idiot." I nudged him again and he looked up at me, gritting his teeth.

"I'm an idiot? Because I don't want to get killed?" he moaned, not moving to stand. I shook my head and poked him with my boot again.

"Get to your feet, now, or I'll shoot you in the knee and leave you here for the Wraith to find."

He struggled to his feet, still moaning as two sets of feet approached from behind me – Ronon and McKay were coming back towards the Jumper. I nudged Kevin with the muzzle of my gun, Ronon didn't hesitate to join me in pointing his weapon towards the engineer. McKay didn't have a large weapon, just his handgun, but the look he was giving Kevin would probably have melted steel at twenty paces.

We were almost back at the Jumper when my radio crackled, John was talking to me.

"There's four Wraith behind you, closing fast. Better make a move."

Ronon and McKay must have heard the communication, too, because the Satedan pressed his handgun to Kevin's neck and broke into a jog, getting to the Jumper inside a minute. McKay was on board and the other two were mounting the ramp when a blue flash hit the side of the ship.

I ducked, turning on the spot to spray the surrounding bushes with bullets. I heard a low grunt – Ronon – from behind me, but ignored it. keeping my eyes on the path as two Wraith came into view.

I saw them through the sight of my P-90 and lifted the weapon, aiming for the chest of the closer one.

I froze.

I knew that I should be shooting, knew that it was either kill them or be killed, but no matter how loudly my brain screamed my finger just didn't pull the trigger.

I saw the Wraith lift his weapon, saw it kick, saw the two pulses of blue light coming towards me at high velocity, when everything went black.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

As I woke up I was, understandably, a little panicked. Much to my relief I heard a familiar voice as soon as I opened my eyes and tried to speak.

"Dr Mackenzie, you're in the infirmary." It was Dr Beckett, cool, calm and collected as always.

"What happened?" I tried to sit up straighter, but he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

"You were stunned and you've got three broken ribs, so you need to stay put."

"Broken ribs?" At that moment I noticed the searing pain in my left side and realised that further movement would be a very bad idea as spots appeared before my eyes. "How did I break three ribs?" I asked through gritted teeth.

"I think I'll let the Colonel explain that one." Carson told me, handing over a paper cup with some small pills in it. "Take these, they'll help with the pain- I'll radio him."

I dry-swallowed the pills before the good doctor could hand me a glass of water and concentrated again on not taking deep breaths while Dr Beckett spoke into his headset.

"She's awake, come on up." He paused, listening, before turning to address me. "Colonel Sheppard's on his way."

A few minutes later the door of my room opened and Colonel Sheppard stepped in, pausing for a moment to speak with Carson before approaching my bed.

"How you feeling?" he asked, grabbing a seat next to my bed and running a hand through his hair.

"Not too bad. You?"  
"Better than you, from what Carson tells me."  
"What exactly happened, for me to wind up with three broken ribs?"

He looked up at me and I saw something like guilt in his expression, but he remained silent.

"John? What happened?"  
"Well, you got stunned."  
"Yes, Carson told me. Then what happened?"  
"Well, Ronon grabbed your vest and dragged you into the Jumper."


	16. Chapter 16

****John****

It was strange, having to sit at Mackenzie's bedside and recount the events that had led to her ending up there. I sighed, resorting to my nervous habit of running a hand through my hair, before telling her what had happened.

"After Ronon dragged you on board we got airborne, and detonated the C-4. The problem then was that they knew we were in the area, so we couldn't just go straight to the Gate – they'd be guarding it way too heavily for us to get past."

I hated to admit it, but my memory of the next hour or so was... fuzzy. So I told her what I'd been able to piece together from what Ronon, Teyla and McKay had told me.

After a few minutes circling the Gate, cloaked, we'd realised that our little distraction wouldn't last long., and certainly wouldn't give us enough breathing room to dial Atlantis anytime soon. Teyla told me that I'd been sidetracked, badly, by Mackenzie's condition... to the point that McKay had been forced to take the controls off of me and I'd wound up sitting on the floor in the back half of the Jumper, cradling her head in my hands and trying not to let her limp body move around too much as we wove between darts and transports.

Ronon and Teyla took control of our situation, Ronon deciding that the best option would be to land somewhere a few klicks from the grounded Hive and attempt to draw a few more ships to the surface of the planet by killing a few Wraith, making them think that there were more of us attacking, get a full-scale response out of them.

Teyla had managed to talk some sense into me once we'd landed, convincing me that the best way to make sure she got home safely was to help her and Ronon with the distraction, leaving McKay to watch over her.

Somehow, stupidly, I forgot about Kevin and his mutinous glares.

We left the Jumper, McKay standing on the ramp, this time with a P-90, and went to wreak some havoc.

Ten dead Wraith later we came back towards the Jumper, Ronon shouting through his radio for McKay to _answer me, dammit!_ and Teyla getting frantic as her radio remained silent, too.

We came up to the place where the Jumper was parked, and I looked around, seeing the telltale signs that it was still there, still cloaked, relaxing for just a moment before I realised something was terribly wrong.

"MCKAY!" Ronon shouted, to no response. We came around to the back end of the Jumper and I froze, staring down the barrel of an automatic weapon and feeling a fury that I did not know I possessed rising in my chest.

"What the _fuck_ is going on?" I demanded. McKay was unconscious, bleeding from a head wound, and Mackenzie was no longer on the seat of the Jumper, she was on the floor, face-down.

Kevin, armed with the P-90 we'd handed to Rodney right before we'd left, stared at me, wild-eyed.

"It's their fault we're stuck here, about to be fucking killed! She's the one who screwed up and she gets to sleep through all the shit?" Kevin took a step backwards, keeping the weapon trained on us, and delivered a swift kick to Mackenzie's ribcage to punctuate his sentence.

I didn't hesitate, as soon as I heard the sickening 'crack' of bone breaking, I fired.

I wasn't the only one. A flash of red flew past my face as I let off a single round from my own P-90, and Kevin was down.

I didn't know or care if he was dead, hell, at that moment I was almost hoping that he'd never get up again. All I know is that I stepped over his limp form and picked Anna up, moving into the cockpit and settling myself on the co-pilots' chair, holding her close and safe while Ronon and Teyla dealt with the rest of the bodies in the back half of the small ship.

Ronon stepped over to me once the cargo bay door was closed and spoke to me, voice low.

"Sheppard? Sheppard?"

I looked up at him, one of my hands still cradling the back of Mackenzie's head.

"John, we need you to get us home. McKay's still bleeding- Teyla can't make it stop, and neither of us can fly this thing."

I looked back down at Anna, the matting on the floor of the Jumper had left an impression along the side of her face, a pattern of circles that were punctuated by small abrasions that were seeping blood, before meeting Ronon's gaze once more.

"What about her?"  
"Here, let me take her." He held out his hands and, after a moments' hesitation I stood up, allowing him to take her from me and sit himself down in the chair behind the co-pilots' seat. Teyla came into the cockpit as well, looking over at Ronon holding Anna, stepping over and pushing a few long, dark strands of hair away from Anna's mouth, laying two fingers on Mackenzie's throat to check her pulse before nodding, just once, and sitting herself on the co-pilots' seat.

I took the controls, but realised that my hands were shaking, from anger or grief or a mixture of the two, I still don't know, but I had to curl my fingers into tight fists for almost half a minute before they stopped.

Two minutes later we were exiting the atmosphere, and I risked another glance at Anna, curled up on Ronon's lap, head lolling on his shoulder, a red bruise coming up on the side of her face.

I tried to breathe in through my nose, to calm myself, but found myself sniffing and had to wipe moisture out of my eyes before I had clear enough vision to risk a run for the Gate.

What we'd done on the surface had worked, there were only two darts left guarding the Gate, and I didn't hesitate to fire a half-dozen drones at each of them before dialling home.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N – For the month of November I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, which means I won't be updating as often as I'd like, because I'm attempting to write 50,000 words of an original story in 30 days! But I do have an update for you here!**

**Feedback is welcomed and received with love... and if you have any suggestions for story directions, or ideas for what should happen next, feel free to either PM me or put it into a feedback form.**

**-Anna**

I wasn't certain if I should be flying into an incandescent rage or breaking down into uncontrollable sobs, but didn't have much of a choice in the matter, as John looked up at me, finishing his story, I felt a tear break free and slide down my nose. I squeezed my eyes shut, determined not to cry, not to be that girl who can't handle bad news, but didn't get much of a chance to console myself.

"Oh, Anna." John got up from his chair and climbed onto the bed, I didn't care that it hurt as the mattress shifted beneath me, all that mattered was that John was wrapping me in his arms, pressing his lips to the top of my head and murmuring nothings into my hair, wishing the pain away.

That was how Dr Beckett found us about an hour later, we'd both dozed off after a bit of a cry, and Carson made enough noise as he re-entered the room that John was able to be back on his seat by the time Carson looked over at us, giving me a wink and a knowing smile.

"How are you feeling, Anna?" he asked, taking my wrist to check for a pulse.

"Oh, I'll be fine."  
"Good to hear. If you're happy to take painkillers I can release you in time for dinner, just let me check those bandages." Carson stepped over to me, pointedly ignoring the fact that John was still holding my hand, just working around us patiently.

"Go get yourselves some dinner, but I want you to report back to me before you go to bed, Mackenzie."  
"No worries, Carson. Thanks for everything."

"Don't think on it. Keep her safe, Sheppard. Much as I love your visits, I prefer to see you at dinner than here in the infirmary."

It was hard not to laugh at John when he treated me like I was made of glass, getting out of the bed, until the stabbing pain from the broken ribs reminded me why laughter was a bad idea.

"This is why you don't laugh if you've got broken ribs." John told me, apparently speaking from experience.

"I'll keep that in mind." I told him, pressing my palm to the site of the pain as we left the infirmary.

We got out of the transporter just around the corner from the cafeteria, John kept a hand on the small of my back as we navigated the stairs into the communal space and I looked up to see McKay, Ronon & Teyla sitting at their usual table. Ronon pulled his feet off the chair next to his as we approached, dragging it away from the table with the toe of his boot and nodding at me to take a seat.

"How are you feeling, Anna?" Teyla asked me as I sat down, concern all over her features.

"Much better, now that the drugs are kicking in." I told her. "How are all of you?"  
"Under investigation." McKay muttered, and Ronon's expression darkened.

"Under investigation? What for?"

"Sheppard didn't tell you?" Ronon asked. "Kevin and Lawrence are both dead."

I turned in my seat to look at John.

"They're both dead?"

At least he had the decency to look a little abashed before answering me.

"We're all being investigated by the IOA in relation to the circumstances surrounding their deaths, that's why you were isolated in the infirmary... and we're all restricted to our quarters and the cafeteria for the foreseeable future."

McKay and Ronon both glowered, and Teyla's jaw was tight.

"So, we're all being investigated regarding their deaths?"  
"Apparently it's just a formality, Elizabeth has assured us that nothing will come of it." McKay muttered, but nobody else looked too convinced.

I swallowed thickly, trying to stop panic from overwhelming me.

"So what's the procedure? This isn't a military investigation, is it?"  
"No, both of them were civilians so it's an IOA investigation." Sheppard told me.

"They're staring interviews tomorrow, because you're out of bed they'll want to get a move on it." McKay put in.

"But as long as we all tell the truth and our stories match up, I mean, Lawrence disobeyed a direct order and fried himself and Kevin, Kevin shot you!" I directed the last part of that comment at McKay.

"Yes, I'm painfully aware of that," he said, shifting in his seat. I noticed the edge of a bandage visible beneath the collar of his shirt, and felt a swell of guilt. "But IOA still want to investigate."

"They want a scapegoat, you mean." Ronon put in, his gravelly voice made me jump slightly.

"Yes, but if we all tell the same story, they won't have one, will they?" I asked.

"If they believe us, they'll be hard pressed to not give us commendations." McKay said, stabbing a piece of carrot with a little more ferocity than was strictly necessary.

"Yeah, right, like the IOA will admit that we've done something right. Who wants cheesecake?"


	18. Chapter 18

I was sitting on a bed in the quarters we'd been assigned, head cradled in my hands and trying to stave off extreme boredom.

As soon as IOA got notice that I was conscious and out of bed they had ordered Elizabeth to restrict the five of us to a certain section of the city- we were shut away in a three-storey section of one of the towers, one of Dr Zelenka's minions had discovered a space that was completely self-contained and only accessible through a transporter, the thought was that it had been used to house diplomats or something similar, and the entire area was able to be sealed off remotely.

For five days we had been stuck in the same eleven rooms, completely cut off from the rest of the city. The first 48 hours had been okay, catching up and messing around. On the third morning we had encountered a slight problem, McKay and Ronon had argued and there had been an... altercation, resulting in Carson being sent up to look at a nasty gash and bruise on McKay's cheekbone, and McKay retreating to the bedroom he had claimed in order to sulk for a few days.

Ronon wasn't coping well with being cooped up. He was running around our limited space at all hours, he and John had been sparring for the first day or so, until John got sick of being beaten up and fobbed him off onto Teyla. I found that my own sleeping patterns were completely messed up, and at around 2.30AM Atlantis time on the sixth morning of our confinement I woke up, staring at the ceiling and unable to return to sleep as a searing pain stabbed me in the side.

I sat up in the bed and swung my feet onto the floor, trying not to breathe too deeply while John snored contentedly behind me, unaware of my movement.

I got up and lifted my t-shirt to investigate where the pain was coming from and discovered bloodstained bandages over the gash in my side - where Kevin had booted me and a rib had broken the skin - that Carson had stitched up almost a week earlier.

"Oh, just brilliant." I muttered, getting to my feet and wincing. "How the hell am I going to get this fixed?"

I slipped my feet into the nearest pair of boots – John's from the size – and opened the door, walking up the hall and into the main living area, considering my options for contacting someone to help with my injury at this hour, confined as we were.

I shuffled into the living area and stopped short, surprised to see that I wasn't the only one conscious.

"Ronon, what are you doing up at this hour?" The tall Satedan was stretched out on the floor in the middle of the lounge space, doing sit ups with his toes hooked under the five-seater sofa.

"I'm bored." he told me, between sit ups. "What's your excuse?"  
"Rolled the wrong way in bed, popped a stitch. Searing pain will wake a person up. I was going to see if I could get onto a doctor, get someone up here to fix it."  
"Want me to have a look?"  
"O-kay..." I pulled my shirt up to reveal the bloodstained bandages, and Ronon stopped his sit ups, twisting on the floor to get a closer look.  
"How many stitches were in the wound?"  
"Five, I think, I wasn't exactly lucid when Carson was stitching me up."  
"Join the club." Ronon muttered, unfastening the end of the bandage and unwrapping my ribs with gentle hands. "Yep, two stitches popped." he commented, peering at the wound.  
"Fantastic. How are we supposed to get hold of a doctor at this hour?"  
"I'll radio the infirmary. Stay put, or you'll rip another one out, or dislocate one of your ribs."

Ronon made me sit down on the end of the sofa and picked up the single radio we had been allowed to have in our isolation space, flicking it on and calling the infirmary.

Ronon and I were sitting on the sofa, discussing his many and various war wounds, and my minimal experience with physical pain, when John emerged from the bedroom, bleary-eyed and shirtless.

"Mackenzie? What's going on?"  
"I popped two stitches, we've just radioed the infirmary and they're sending someone up to fix me."  
"Why didn't you wake me up?"  
"Because you were asleep, for the first time in three days you were actually asleep, and I thought I should let you keep doing that." I told him.  
"But, you're bleeding!"  
"John, I've been bleeding for the better part of a week. Ronon has radioed a doctor; someone will be up here in a minute to fix me up. Go back to bed."  
"But-"  
"Back to bed, Colonel." I told him, injecting a little steel into my tone, narrowing my eyes at him.  
"Yes, ma'am." he mock-saluted me and turned around, heading back towards the bedroom we'd claimed, hitching up his sleep-pants as he left.

Carson arrived a few minutes later, shaking his head at me as he realised the extent of the damage.

"What have you been doing, Dr Mackenzie, to tear such a hole in yourself?"  
"Nothing out of order, I promise, how can I do anything to over-exert myself when we're restricted to twenty-four hundred square feet?"  
"Alright, but whatever you did to cause this problem, don't do it again until you're more properly healed."  
"Yes, Dr Beckett." I nodded enthusiastically, biting my lip as he re-stitched my wound, Ronon watching on with interest.

..

..

..

..

..

The next afternoon, after Carson had been to replace the dressing on my wound and give the rest of the team their weekly physicals, we were treated to a visit from our fearless leader.

Elizabeth looked a little uncomfortable at first, sitting on a sofa opposite the five of us, but once she started talking she managed to project at least the image of confidence and comfort.

"I've just finished speaking with the General, it's been agreed that you will remain confined to these quarters for the next two weeks, until Daedalus gets here. There are five representatives from the IOA on board, and they, with myself, will be conducting the investigation into the deaths that occurred on your most recent mission."

"We're stuck in here for two more weeks?" Rodney moaned, earning a withering glare from Dr Weir. I rolled my eyes and caught John doing the same, biting back a grin as he nudged me with his elbow.

"You will be allowed access to a computer, Rodney, but the IOA has requested that you be kept isolated due to the high number of fatalities that have been associated with ATL1 of late."  
"What about me?" I asked, not wanting to state the obvious, but feeling that it needed to be said. "I'm not exactly a member of ATL1, Dr Weir."  
"No, but by your own admission you were party to the death of Dr Davies."  
"Oh come on, Lawrence Davies disobeyed a direct order and electrocuted himself." McKay snapped, getting to his feet.  
"What about Kevin Masters?"

We all kind of answered at once.

"He shot me!"  
"He assaulted Mackenzie!"  
"He broke three of my ribs!"  
"He shot McKay!"  
"I only stunned him!"

"Okay, okay, so he wasn't exactly a model team-member on this mission, but he was a valued member of staff down in the labs, and IOA is insisting on a full investigation into his death and that of Dr Davies. The representatives are already on board Daedalus and it's only two weeks away, you'll all survive that long up here."

Elizabeth looked around at all of us, sitting silent and unhappy in a semicircle around her, almost daring one of us to object. McKay opened his mouth, looking as if he was going to at least question why we were so restricted, but a sharp look from Dr Weir and he closed it again with a snap.

"Look, I know it sucks, but it is only temporary." She told us, as if that was some kind of consolation. We recognised the dismissal and all got to our feet, moving away from the lounge. Elizabeth stopped me.

"Dr Mackenzie, can I speak to you for a moment?"

John caught my eye and raised one eyebrow, silently asking if he should come with me. I shook my head gently, smiling at him and waving him back towards our quarters before turning my attention back to Elizabeth, standing near the door of the transporter, radio in hand.

"The IOA representatives aren't the only personnel on Daedalus this time, I thought you should know, your brothers are both on their way, too."

My mouth fell open in shock. There were few things that she could have said that would have surprised me more- well, maybe if she'd told me that she had a crush on McKay and wanted me to put a good word in I might have been, but that was about it.

"What?"  
"As I understand it, Andrew was briefed while you were missing. He put in requests with every single senior officer he had any kind of pull with in order to get himself reassigned to Atlantis."  
"What about Alex?" I asked, my mouth dry.  
"Alex was due to come out in three months, but Colonel Carter arranged to have his secondment moved up so that he could be out here with you after such an experience."  
"Oh, no…"I murmured, reeling. What the heck was I supposed to do about my brothers coming to Atlantis?

How would I tell John that he was about to meet my entire family?

"Don't worry, Anna, you've got two weeks before they get here. You'll be fine." Elizabeth clapped me on the shoulder and left the room, closing the door in my face.

The last time I had seen my brothers hadn't been fun – neither of them had been happy about their little sister going on a long-term mission in another galaxy, but had relented eventually. Andrew had even been able to come out to Daedalus to see me off, by virtue of being a member of SG7. Alex had spoken to me via video-link while I'd still been in the Milky Way, having been off-world when I'd left, but the final goodbyes from each of them had been distant, cold almost. I knew that seeing them again would be far from easy.

I turned, slowly, and made my way back up the hall towards the room I was sharing with John, feeling like someone had dumped a bucket of ice-water over my head.

..

..

..

..

..

As it eventuated, I didn't actually tell John that evening. It wasn't until two days later, at breakfast, when Rodney suddenly and rather explosively lamented that he had forgotten his sister's birthday, again, that the topic of siblings even came up.

"I never have that problem." I told him, taking a bite out of a piece of toast and trying not to look too smug.

"Why not?" McKay demanded, as if the fact that I could remember my sibling's birthdays was a personal insult to him.

"I'm a triplet. Kind of hard to forget your brothers' birthdays when they're on the same day as your own."

The four of them stared at me for a moment, and McKay recovered first.

"Is that cocky Major Mackenzie on SG7 your brother?"  
"That would be Andrew. He's the eldest, by eight minutes."  
"What about the third triplet?" John asked. I was surprised at how interested he seemed.  
"Alex is on SG12 as their science officer, it's kind of strange, really, we're all in totally different fields but wound up assigned to the SGC within six months of each other."

McKay was incredulous.

"Yeah, right, one of you broke protocol and told the others something confidential so they had no choice but to let you all in."

"Actually, Rodney, before I came to Atlantis I was working in Area 51, and had been reassigned to looking at Pegasus technology as part of a paperwork mix-up, but I was working with alien tech for two weeks before it was noticed. Andrew got recruited out of Afghanistan, like you did, John. Alex is an archaeologist, and he was part of one of the teams excavating a site in South America, that turned out to be a trove of Ancient tech. He'd taught himself to read Ancient by the time Dr Jackson got to the site, so Daniel asked him to come back to Colorado and help with some translations."

"What do your parents think about all three of you working under nondisclosure agreements? Must make for a quiet Thanksgiving." John put in.

"Our parents were killed in a car accident when we were 22. Andrew was still in basic training, I was at NYU and Alex was at Stanford. Until I was doing an orientation tour at Cheyenne Mountain last year we hadn't seen each other since their funeral."

"Must have been quite a shock to see a sibling after you'd signed a nondisclosure like the SGC hands you." McKay commented, almost laughing.

"The worst part was that Drew had only been there a few days and hadn't seen Lex at that point. I got taken to the commissary for lunch and spotted Lex in his fatigues, messing around with his buddies and thought I was seeing things. I didn't even go up to him, but I literally ran into Drew as I left, we made so much noise crashing to the floor in the doorway that Lex came over to investigate and realised that the brother and sister he hadn't seen for half a decade had managed to knock each other to the floor in the middle of a top-secret Air Force base that he had only been assigned to a month earlier."


	19. Chapter 19

By the time Daedalus arrived in orbit around Lantea we were all well and truly sick of each other.

McKay had managed to get into knock-down drag-out fights with each of us at one point or another, and the day we got notice that Daedalus was planet-side not one of us was actually speaking to him - he was cooped up in his 'lab' running simulations and throwing us dark looks when he had to join us at meal-times.

Ronon and John had argued as well, but they'd had a few nights of nastier-than-usual sparring and gotten over it after a pair of muttered apologies while they were catching their breath. Both of them had begun to go a little stir-crazy in the second week of our confinement, and had joined forces in order to coerce relocation out of Dr Weir.

We hadn't quite been that lucky, but we had been allowed additional space, and the guys had been allowed access to the shooting range (when nobody else was there) and that meant they got a lot of their aggression out on the targets, rather than each other. Teyla had been teaching me to meditate - I found that it helped with the pain in my ribs. Carson came up one afternoon and took the stitches out, announcing that I was healing well, so John took me to the shooting range that night to celebrate - teaching me how to use every hand-held weapon we had access to, including Ronon's.

Ronon himself wanted to give me some training in physical combat, but Carson put a kibosh on that as soon as the idea was floated - he was unhappy enough that John was letting me fire off P-90's, learning how to spar would probably lead to puncturing a lung.

Most afternoons consisted of Ronon and Teyla basically taking it in turns to beat John up for about an hour, until he got sick of being a punching bag and joined me on the sidelines, watching the two of them battle it out until they got tired and decided that it was time for dinner. McKay joined us, occasionally, but was more often than not secluded in his lab-space for the bulk of the day.

In the evenings, when Teyla and I would meditate, John and Ronon would be running around the space, up and down stairs and occasionally using furniture, or us seated on the floor, as hurdles before ending their runs with a race of sorts - a sprint into whichever room we were using for meditation that evening - collapsing on the floor, out of breath and completely distracting us from the 'nothingness' we were supposed to be thinking about.

Some afternoons I missed the sparring sessions - McKay would grab me every few days and drag me into his lab to help out with simulations or to double-check equations that he'd been looking at for too many hours. I had to help him without objecting too loudly, even incarcerated as we were; he was still technically my boss and as long as I was on Atlantis I was supposed to be working.

Rodney had managed to achieve a few feats of brilliance, though. Within a day of being allowed a computer he'd broken through the Atlantis firewalls (he'd helped build them, it had taken him twenty minutes to get into the system through a back-door access code he'd written in for himself) and given us access to communications, so we knew who was where and what was happening. He'd even managed to gain access to the security cameras that had been installed in our own quarters – and found the blind spots first, then rearranged the cameras so that we all had a little more privacy.

The day Daedalus arrived, we knew that we were going to be joined by Dr Weir after lunch, so we all made an effort to be on time and tidied up in readiness for her arrival.

Elizabeth sat down at the head of the table, directly opposite Ronon, and began to explain what was happening.

"I assume that you already know the Daedalus is in orbit as of today?" Elizabeth was not stupid - she obviously knew that we'd gained access to the computer systems. We'd obeyed her direct orders, though. The only people we had communicated with outside of our own little group were the doctors and Elizabeth herself... but that hadn't stopped us listening in to almost every single radio broadcast made on the Atlantis network. I think she was just grateful that we hadn't overridden the transporter controls and escaped in a Jumper after the first week.

We all nodded at her and she sighed.

"Then you'll all know that your hearing is scheduled for tomorrow morning. Each of you will be questioned separately and then the committee will convene and decide what is going to happen."

Teyla spoke up.

"Elizabeth, I am still unclear on why Ronon and I must be subjected to this hearing. We are not from Earth, why must we submit to be judged by people other than our own?"

She had asked this question before and Dr Weir had evaded it like a pro, but faced Teyla directly and gave her a straight answer, now.

"The IOA has decided that you will be included in this hearing to decide upon your future as members of the Atlantis expedition."

"They can't do that!" John exploded, echoed by myself and Dr McKay in quick succession. "Teyla's our best connection to the native people of Pegasus and Ronon's the best tracker and fighter we've got!" John spoke with such conviction that even Rodney just sat back and let him argue with Elizabeth by himself.

"It's no good telling me- I already know. It's the IOA council members that you've got to convince."

The mood was dark by the time Elizabeth left- she'd told us who all of the 'council' members were and John knew one of them by reputation- he was a hard man who had been against John's appointment as the de-facto leader from the start and revelled in his position of authority over 'military-types', resenting the fact that Atlantis was still, primarily, a military operation.

About half an hour after Elizabeth had left, the lights on the door of our transporter lit up, and we all looked over at it - nobody had radioed to let us know they were coming up, who on earth had been allowed to come and visit us?

"Drew? Lex! Oh my god! What are you doing up here?" I leapt out of my seat and flew across the room, throwing myself at my two brothers and allowing myself to be caught between them.

The three of us began talking all at once, ignoring the rest of the people in the room, and therefore I didn't notice when McKay's mouth fell open in shock while John's eyebrows began to knit together in confusion. It wasn't until John stood up and stepped over to where the three of us were yammering away, interrupting our conversation to introduce himself, that I realised what we'd done.

As kids, triplets, we had kind of become our own little social unit. We didn't have any other siblings and our parents were both multi-lingual, so when we were at home - and quite often when we were at school - we wouldn't speak English, but a hybrid mixture of Spanish (from Mum) and French (from Dad) with a little English mixed in from time-to-time. Because we were fluent in all three languages we would chop and change between them without conscious thought, but it was highly confusing to any outsider who might overhear us.

"Oh, John! Oh, I'm so sorry! We weren't speaking English, were we?"

"Uh, no, not exactly."

I stifled a laugh at the look on his face. "I'll explain later. In the meantime, John, Teyla, Ronon, Rodney? These are my brothers, Andrew and Alex."

The boys turned to my team-mates with their matching, trademarked, devastating smiles, holding out hands to shake and greeting everyone in turn, Alex even gave Teyla a hug, making her eyes widen as she looked at me over his shoulder, unused to such familiarity from a stranger.

Alex was in civvies- black straight-leg jeans and a white shirt with a skinny blue tie, while Andy was still in his BDU's, albeit with his sleeves rolled up and his cap on backwards.

Andy clearly recognised John, or at least recognised how he held himself and remembered that I'd mentioned in an e-mail that I was incarcerated with a Colonel, so rather than shaking John's hand he snapped to attention and spun his cap forwards, giving John a smart salute before John put him at ease and offered his own hand in greeting.

Alex was respectful of John's position as well - we'd grown up with a father who was part of the French Foreign Legion and had served long enough to be eligible for French citizenship, but still gave John a hard look when he stepped back and slid a hand around my waist, not-so-subtly making the exact nature of our relationship quite obvious to my brothers.

There was a moment of awkward silence, unexpectedly broken by Ronon.

"I thought you guys were triplets?" he asked, apparently noticing that the boys were identical, and almost five inches taller than me.

"We are... it's kind of complicated. Can we sit down?" Andy asked, motioning towards the sofa.

We stepped over to the lounge area, Rodney took a single seat and John pulled me onto a two-seater, leaving the sectional for the boys, Ronon & Teyla.

It took about an hour of conversation and many questions from first my team and then my brothers, but eventually everything was explained properly, from why we were locked up in a tower like the proverbial damsels in distress, to how, as a freak of nature, Andrew and Alex were identical twins with a female fraternal triplet, a one in ten-million occurrence.

The boys gathered, through our story about what had happened with the prototype shield, exactly what kind of relationship I had with John – which meant that when Ronon muttered something about making dinner, Andy gave me a look and muttered, in French, that I should probably go help him.

I took the hint, giving John a kiss on the cheek and telling the boys – in Spanish – to go easy on him and whispering to John 'prepare for an interrogation' before going into the kitchen to join Ronon.

For a man who had lived on the run for so many years, Ronon had some amazing culinary skills. It had taken some trial and error for him to get used to using stoves and ovens again, but he knew his way around a kitchen and wasn't hesitant in taking over the cooking duties, literally picking me up and taking me out of the kitchen one night when I got frustrated with the chilli I was attempting to cook, rescuing it and offering to show me some of his tricks... when I'd calmed down a little and stopped throwing things.

Tonight, in honour of my brothers visiting, Ronon grabbed the radio as I came into the kitchen and asked me what their favourites were.

"Well, anything, really, and they're certainly not vegetarians."

"Roast pig it is." Ronon told me, flicking the radio on and calling the commissary, his tone suddenly changing from gruff and demanding to almost musical as he sweet-talked one of the chefs – a woman by the name of Gloria – into sending up a pork leg roast and seven different types of vegetables for our dinner.

..

..

..

..

A few hours later, after my brothers had left, I found myself alone with my thoughts in the gym, flat on my back, staring at the ceiling and considering how the rest of the evening had gone.

The boys had left a few minutes earlier and John had kissed my cheek before heading towards our quarters… I'd decided to take a few minutes to reflect before joining him. The boys had given me silent nods of approval, Andy had even gone so far as to thank John for looking after me for them and before they'd left I'd been given two bear-hugs that almost squeezed the breath out of me, before I reminded them about the recently broken ribs and they both apologised.

I smiled to myself, grateful that I had finally found someone who my brothers seemed to both like and respect, when the door of the gym clicked open. I closed my eyes preparing to sit up and leave so whoever wanted the gym could use it, when Ronon spoke.

"Oh, sorry."

"It's okay, Ronon, I was just about to leave." I sat up, crossing my legs and looking over at the tall man leaning against the doorframe.

"Hey, I've been meaning to ask you how Sheppard's doing."

"What?"

"Teyla's been worried because he hasn't been talking, so I said I'd ask you."

"Why would I know any better than you guys how John is doing?"

Ronon looked at me, one eyebrow raised. "I know from personal experience that a man will speak to his woman about things he would never discuss with his friends."

"His woman?"

"Come on, Mackenzie, he might as well have your name tattooed across his chest."

"Okay, okay. But why would I have a better handle on his state of mind than you guys? I've barely known him a month; you've known him for the better part of a year, Teyla and McKay have known him even longer."

"There are still some things that he won't tell us. Like how he really thinks this hearing is going to turn out tomorrow. I know he's worried about it, but he won't talk to us."

"You want me to ask him?"

Ronon nodded and I sighed.

"Help me up – I better do this now before I change my mind."

Ronon caught me by the wrists and hauled me to my feet before following me through our lounge space to the door of my shared quarters. He gave me a soft, genuine smile before nudging me in the small of my back and sending me stumbling through the door.

John looked up from his golf magazine, surprised, as I almost fell on top of him.

"Whoa, Anna, what's going on?"

"Hi." I looked up at him from my position on the floor, having landed on my hands and knees thanks to Ronon's over-enthusiastic shove. "I keep thinking there's a divider of some sort in the doorway, tripping over my own feet all the time."

Thankfully, John knew how much of a klutz I can be, and just laughed as he pulled me up onto the bed, reclining and tugging at my arm so that I was sprawled on top of him.

"I did that for the first month on Atlantis, too." he laughed at me, sliding an arm around my waist and grinning before kissing me, hard.

It was easy to allow myself to become distracted, forgetting for a few moments what I was supposed to be asking him and why.

"What do you think is going to happen, tomorrow?" I asked, pulling myself away from him and resting my chin on his sternum.

He sighed, scrubbing a hand through his hair and looking down at me, thoughtful.

"I honestly have no idea. Elizabeth would make a mean poker player – I couldn't even tell what she was thinking when she talked to us today. What did your brothers think?"  
"They spent the whole trip out here being kept occupied by their superiors; they barely saw each other, let alone the IOA representatives."

John sighed again.

"Well I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Come here."

He pulled me back up against him, pressing his lips to my head and murmuring into my hair.

"You know, I'm sorry about what I said the other day."  
"It's okay, I know you didn't mean it."  
"No, it's not okay... I still feel bad about it."  
"Don't worry. You've met my brothers and they like you - which means that I like you more than ever."  
"Good to know. I'm still going to keep apologising, just so you know."  
"And I'm going to keep telling you that I'm okay and that I forgive you. Do you want me to hit you with the banto-sticks? Would that help?"

He knew that I was half-kidding, at least, I hope he did, because he looked thoughtful for a moment before grinning.

"Nah, it's okay. I'll just keep beating myself up about it for a while."  
"Well let me know when you've gotten over it, okay? Ronon's worried, he thinks you're stressing about the hearing."  
"He does?"  
"So does Teyla."  
"Hm." He pondered this, resting his chin on the top of my head while I pressed my ear to his chest, listening to his heart beating and letting it lull me towards sleep.

He spoke again, his chest rumbling against my cheek.

"Do you think we should be worried about the hearing?"

I thought about it, lifting myself so that my arms were crossed over his chest and I could see his face.

"I don't think so. We all know what happened, as long as we all tell the truth then they can't send us to a firing squad, can they?"  
"I hope not. I like it out here."

I sighed. "Me too."


	20. Chapter 20

The next morning at around 5AM I woke up, staring at the ceiling.

Sleep decided that it was going to elude me.

John was snoring peacefully beside me, so I slipped out of bed, deciding that I should probably do something other than count the rivets holding the ceiling together.

I picked up a sarong and wrapped it around myself before heading towards the gym, wondering if anyone else was awake, yet.

The place was deserted, and twenty minutes later I was lying flat on my back counting the rivets in the gym ceiling, content that I was at least not disturbing anyone else.

The door slid open and I rolled over onto my side, looking up at John as he stepped sideways through the door, surveying the room.

"There you are!" He stepped through the door as he spotted me, sliding it closed and walking across the smooth surface towards me and sitting down, legs crossed at the ankle and scanning the ceiling to try and see what I had been looking at.

"Yes, here I am. Why are you here?"  
"I woke up alone, thought I should come looking for you."  
"I couldn't sleep."  
"Why not?"  
"I'm worried, about today, about what's going to happen."  
"You know, you really don't need to be. We've been in worse situations before than this."  
"Really?"  
"Well, not really. But we'll be fine, if we all tell the truth then there's not much they can really do, discipline-wise, because both of their deaths were their own fault."  
"But what if-"  
"No what ifs. Come back to bed, we can talk about this somewhere comfortable."  
"John..." He got to his feet and caught my hand, lifting me up and hugging me to him, rocking slightly as he smoothed my hair back from my face.  
"Don't worry, Anna, we'll be fine." He punctuated the sentence with a kiss on my cheek before lifting me off my feet, carrying me through the doorway and turning back towards our quarters.

"Ronon? What are you doing up?"  
"What are you two doing?" he asked, one eyebrow raised. I could understand his confusion, John and I had just emerged from the gym and he was carrying me like a new bride.  
"Heading back to bed." John told him, and I felt him stifle a laugh deep in his throat.  
"I'm not even going to ask why you were in the gym. 'Night."

He resumed his jogging, going past us with a cynical half-smile as John set me down, slinging an arm over my shoulder as we went back to our room. 

*SGA* *SGA* *SGA* *SGA*

It was strange, seeing John in his dress blues. I'd never seen him in anything other than BDU, occasionally on a day off he'd wear a golf shirt and jeans, but this morning he looked stiff and uncomfortable.

He was tugging at his collar as I smoothed my skirt – I'd found the most 'formal' clothing I owned, a black skirt over grey stockings, a dark green shirt and a black blazer, sensible black pumps and I'd managed to pull my hair into some semblance of order that looked almost like a French knot.

"Leave your tie alone." I stood up and stepped over to him, straightening it for him and resisting the urge to try and flatten his hair – I knew that there was next to nothing I would be able to do to stop it from sticking up as it did.

"Sorry, sorry." he muttered, jamming his hands into his pockets and rolling on the balls of his feet, eyes flickering towards the ceiling, distracted as all hell.

I watched him acting like an impatient toddler for a few seconds before I caught him by the neck and forced him to look me in the eye.

"John, take a deep breath. Everything is going to be fine. Even if they wanted to fire us, we know far too much about the Stargate program for them to release us back into the general population. We know we did everything we could; we know that."  
"I know, I know... I'm just thinking about what might happen to the others..."  
"If they tell Ronon and Teyla that they have to leave then we can leave, too."  
"Anna, that's not what I meant..."  
"Well, that's my plan, anyway."  
"What?"  
"If this 'council' tells Ronon and Teyla that they're no longer welcome in Atlantis then I'm telling them that I'm leaving, too."

He stared at me, mouth open, and it took him a few seconds before he regained his powers of speech.

"You think that'll work?"  
"Probably not, but it's the least I can do to show solidarity to my teammates."  
"Mackenzie, you are a genius."  
"How else do you think I got this job?"

John just smiled at me with one eyebrow raised and kissed me, very gently, as his door slid open and McKay stepped in, agitated and fiddling with his own tie.

"Do you two have to do that?" he asked, pulling the tie completely away from his collar and tossing it onto the bed in frustration.

"Well we would get a room, but seeing as this is our room..." John told him. McKay ignored the jibe, sitting down on our bed and running both hands through his hair.

"I don't want to get fired." McKay finally said, looking up at us with his tie crumpled up inside his right fist. "I like it out here. I don't have to deal with as many idiots as I did back on Earth."  
"None of us want to get fired, Rodney." John reassured him.  
"None of us are going to get fired." I told them both, taking McKay's tie out of his hand and looping it around my own neck, twisting it into a single Windsor knot before pulling it over my head and handing it to Rodney who looked at it, almost confused for a second, before he put it on himself.

"Let's go, we don't want to be late to our own trial." John muttered. We left the room, finding Ronon and Teyla waiting in the dining area, a pair of Marines with them.

"We've been sent to accompany you to the hearing."  
"You're Browne, right?" John asked the taller one.  
"Yes sir."  
"Give us a minute."  
"Yes, sir."

The two men stepped away, taking up posts on either side of the transporter while the five of us sat down at the dining table.

Well, Teyla and I sat down. Ronon was pacing, McKay went to the fridge and pulled out three power bars, unwrapped one and shoved it, whole, into his mouth. John stood at the head of the table and took a deep breath.

"Okay. We've discussed this at length. No matter what questions they ask, we will all tell the same story. We know we've done nothing wrong; this 'council' has no reason to discipline any of us with anything more than a slap on the wrist."

He finally sat down and motioned for the other men to join us. Once they did, John looked each of us in the eye before saying his final piece.

"Just stick to the truth. Come on. McKay, give me one of those."

Rodney jumped, guilty, before grudgingly handing over one of the power bars, tearing the wrapper from the last one and taking a large bite out of it before anyone else could claim it.

"Come on – don't want to be late." John said after a few minutes, nodding at the Marines, one of whom opened the door of the transporter as we all got up and crossed the room, crowding into it.

The next eight hours passed in somewhat of a blur. Most of my day was spent sitting in a small room, alone, on an uncomfortable moulded plastic chair with a glass of water and four blank walls for company.

As it eventuated, I barely spent forty minutes in front of the 'council' and even that was extremely unsatisfying. I got hamstrung by their questions and frustrated by constant interruptions, but I did feel, as they changed tactics mid-questioning, that they were finally beginning to realise that there was little any of us could have done to prevent the deaths of the two doctors – and had started to acknowledge that none of us were at fault.

They asked me to leave before I'd been there three-quarters of an hour, I was escorted back to the small room and there was a sandwich waiting on a tray next to a cold cup of coffee, apparently it was supposed to pass for lunch.

I figured (no clocks to go by) that it was about mid-afternoon when the Marines opened my door again and led me back to the room where the 'council' were seated.

John, Rodney, Ronon and Teyla were there, Elizabeth was still seated at the far end of the table, and her poker face was in full force as the five of us lined up in front of the people who were deciding our fate.

The smaller man, balding and wearing a suit the colour of faded concrete, stood up and addressed us.

"After careful consideration of all the evidence we have been presented with, including mission reports and personnel records, we have come to the conclusion that the deaths of Drs Davies and Masters were both terrible tragedies; our understanding is that no-one on this team was directly responsible for those tragedies.

"However, we do have some recommendations for how things are to happen in future. Firstly- this Gate-Shield project is on hold, indefinitely, until a more stable energy source can be devised. The entire ATL-1 team is also on sabbatical for one month. You will be allowed free access to this entire facility but off-world missions will be limited to visitation with the Athosian peoples and known allies."

He stopped talking and glanced at Elizabeth, who got to her feet and addressed us herself.

"I have agreed to these terms, so as of now you are all free to return to your own quarters and tomorrow resume your usual duties. I've reassigned ATL-2 to the missions you were pencilled in for; as Mr Frazer told you, the only off-world activities you will participate in for the next month will be with known allies and, of course, the Athosians. You may go."

We all walked out of the room as a group and, somehow, made it all the way to the transporter before the excitement bubbled over.

McKay broke first.

"Not fired! Awesome, I'm going to my lab to make sure that Zelenka didn't break anything too important. See you at dinner." He stepped into the transporter, closing the door in Ronon's face. Before I could see how he'd reacted to Rodney's actions, John swept me into a tight hug, pressing his mouth to my neck and grinning.

"Not fired; not going back to Earth and only suspended for a month! This is great! I want to go celebrate!"  
"Celebrate?"  
"Let's find your brothers and go to the mainland – see if we can find a campfire and some moonshine. There should be a batch ready, right?" He directed his question at Teyla who nodded. Ronon's eyes lit up – apparently moonshine was a universal thing.

"Let me get out of these clothes, first."  
"You think I'm going to drink moonshine in a tent wearing dress blues?"

I just laughed at the incredulity in John's voice while Ronon and Teyla stepped into the transporter, Teyla holding the door back for us.

"Go ahead, we'll meet you in the Jumper bay in... two hours." John told them, waving them away.

Teyla let the door go with a grin and I caught a glint of teeth from Ronon too before they vanished from sight.

"Two hours?"  
"Well, I want to take a shower... and take my time."  
"Of course you do."

He dragged me into the transporter, kissing me hard, before leading me down the hallway to his quarters, ignoring all of the strange looks we were getting as two people running through Atlantis in formal clothing, giggling like a pair of schoolkids.


	21. Chapter 21

The next few days were rather strange; having been cloistered in a single tower for so long, being free to move about the city felt a little odd. Add to that the fact that my brothers were both in attendance and I felt distinctly out of my element.

Then, of course, was Elizabeth's subtly disapproving attitude towards my relationship with her military commander, to the point that she actually pulled John aside about a week after our hearing to get an 'update' on what was going on, which seemed to consist of berating him for having a girlfriend.

I found it odd, though, that it had taken this long for Elizabeth to involve herself in our relationship – although, admittedly, we'd barely begun dating when the incident with the shield had happened. I guessed that she had to have been aware of the sleeping arrangements during our incarceration, not least from the novel-length e-mails that McKay had been sending her every day. So why had she waited almost a month before telling him off about it?

I found out that night, lying with my head on John's chest. He spoke suddenly, his chest rumbling against my ear.

'Apparently Weir thinks that you're going to cloud my judgement, that you've already started to.'  
'Cloud your judgement?'  
'McKay told her about me checking with you about the conduits in the DHD.'  
'So?'  
'He worded it as if his authority was being undermined.'

I felt my eyebrows knit together in confusion.

'His authority was being undermined? What does that even mean?'  
'He was pissed off that I didn't take his word as gospel.'  
'Oh come on, I'm almost as smart as he is.'  
'That's not what he thinks.'  
I sighed, before voicing the question.

'So what was Elizabeth's recommendation?'  
'She's not happy about us seeing each other, but technically she can't stop us – you're not military and I'm the ranking officer, anyway.'  
'John, that's a non-answer.'  
'Fine. She wants you to go back into the lab and me back into the field. She's unhappy about us working together because she doesn't want me distracted while I'm out there, and she doesn't want one of her more highly qualified scientists in the line of fire. She's unhappy enough that McKay's on my team, she doesn't want two of the finest minds in the galaxy to be out fighting Wraith when at least one of them could be here working on Ancient technology and new defence options.'

I stretched out, we were on the now-double sized mattress that John had managed to requisition for his quarters. I still had my own room, but had moved into a place much closer to the wing where John slept, I was now only two corridors away from his room rather than a ten-minute walk and two trips in transporters.

'So I'm back on lab tech duty?'  
'For now. And as of next week I'm back in charge of ATL-1. Lorne's sick of being on point and is looking forward to me being back in charge.'  
'So why are you still looking so cranky?'  
'Because McKay's put in a transfer request.'  
'What?'  
'For you.'

I sat up straight, pulling the sheet with me and spun to face John, incredulous.

'He's done what?'  
'Rodney wants you back on Earth. He claims that you'll be more useful at the SGC than out here. Weir just has to approve it and you'll be going back through the Gate with your brothers.'  
'But they leave in two days!'  
'Exactly. That's why Weir wants to meet with us, both of us, tomorrow.'  
'What? Why?'  
'Because she's giving us a say in what happens.'

I slid back down, resting on my elbow, and John reached up to brush my hair back from my face.

'Why would she do that?'  
'Mainly to annoy McKay, I think. Plus you're too valuable to the work happening out here for you to get sent back to Earth.'

I lay down on the bed again, my head now on John's shoulder and he gave me a squeeze.

'We'll be fine.'  
'Oh, that's easy for you to say, you're indispensable – handpicked by Jack O'Neill to be here and the highest ranking military officer in the city. I'm just a lab tech who's made the mistake of getting on McKay's nerves.'  
'Come here.' He lifted me up until I was entirely on top of him and held my shoulders. 'You're not going anywhere, even if I have to threaten Rodney with a super soaker full of lemon juice.'  
'That's… surprisingly romantic.' I leaned down and kissed him, sliding my arms around his neck and letting my mind go blank.  
'What can I say, I'm a charming man.'

I laughed a little at that and he grinned back, hazel eyes twinkling.

'Can we forget about tomorrow for a while?' he asked, sliding a hand down my torso.  
'I don't know, can you distract me enough to stop me dwelling on the fact that in three days I might be in another galaxy?'  
'Oh, if you're going to be that far away I'm going to have to make sure I'm well and truly burned into your memory. Come here.'


	22. Chapter 22

To say that the outcome of the meeting with Elizabeth was unsatisfactory would be the understatement of the millennium – from my perspective the entire thing was an unmitigated disaster.

Plus, I wanted to shoot McKay in the leg. Not kill him, just give him a serious wound and make him uncomfortable enough that he'd think of me whenever the weather got bad.

Long story short, I was going back to Earth with my brothers, the year-long blind contract I'd signed before being taken to Pegasus was being terminated early and the reassignment to Cheyenne Mountain was close to finalized – the last stage would be a submission to General O'Neill when we went home and as soon as he signed off I would be back on earth indefinitely, working in the labs on Earth with whatever Ancient tech was being sent back from Pegasus.

I had less than 24 hours to get myself packed up and ready to Gate home.

I walked out of Elizabeth's office feeling like I'd been kicked in the stomach – my ribs ached and I was certain that I was going to be sick. Alex was off-world with ATL-5, meeting one of our Pegasus trading partners, but Andrew had been waiting for me and caught me in a hug when I exited the office alone, leaving John in behind to argue some more with Weir and McKay – he was almost as unhappy about my being sent home as I was, if his reaction to the news of the transfer approval was anything to go by.

'So, you're coming home?'  
'Reassigned to Stargate Command, indefinitely.' I muttered, pressing my face into my brothers' shoulder and trying not to let my voice crack as I spoke, failing miserably. Andrew knew better than to try and reassure me – as a man whose entire life had been surrounded by military types and knew the chain of command, he also knew how futile raging against it could be.  
'You'll get to go shopping, Anna, and see familiar constellations. These ones freak me out a little, not being able to spot the Big Dipper is weird.' He told me, giving me a squeeze.  
'I really don't want to. I like it here, I love working with Ancient tech and I feel like I'm actually making a difference. This place is such an adventure! Anything back on Earth would be downright boring compared to what I get to do out here. Not to mention the sound of the ocean… it's so relaxing.'  
'Then there's John.' Andrew said, pushing me away from him so that he could look me in the eyes. I made a cursory attempt to avoid his gaze, before nodding, a lump rising in my throat.  
'You've only been seeing him for what, a month?'  
I still couldn't speak, just nodded again.  
'Anna, what the heck is the attraction to this guy? From what I've heard he practically ignored you for the first two months you were even here.'  
'I don't know, he just showed up in the lab one night and we watched a few episodes of the Simpsons together...'  
'How romantic.'  
'Hey, it was either that or one of the Godfather movies, and you know how much I like those.'  
Andrew laughed at that and turned me with a hand on my shoulder, steering me away from the shouting I could faintly hear from behind Elizabeth's closed doors.  
'Come on, back to your quarters. I know this isn't fun, but you can't argue with the decision – I know from experience that General O'Neill isn't likely to change his mind. I'm sure he's got a good reason for wanting you back on Earth, and that he wouldn't do something this likely to annoy Sheppard without good reason. He's not a vindictive man.'

In that moment I found him a little hard to believe, but allowed myself to be taken back to my room and set down on my bed.

'Look, Drew, you can go. I want some time to think, to try and process all of this, okay? I promise I'll start packing, soon.'

My youngest brother looked at me for a moment before nodding and giving my shoulder one last squeeze and stepping back, closing the door behind him.

…

…

…

…

…

An hour later I was still sitting on the foot of my bed, staring at my boots and hadn't made one move towards beginning to pack up my things, when I heard my door open.

'Look, Drew, I know I'm supposed to be packing but I just want a bit of time to grieve, okay?'

But the fingers that ran through my hair, getting caught in the messy, dark curls, did not belong to either of my brothers. I looked up to find a pair of hazel-green eyes staring down at me.

I opened my mouth to ask the question and found that my throat had gone completely dry so that I couldn't speak. John didn't actually say anything, just knelt down in front of me and bought his other hand up to cup my face, kissed me gently and gathered me into his arms.

'I'm going back, aren't I?' my voice caught as I spoke into his shoulder, pressing my face into his shirt in a futile attempt too keep the tears at bay.

John didn't actually answer me, just pressed his lips to the top of my head and lifted my chin so that he could kiss me deeply, sliding his hands down my arms.

My mind was slowly disengaging, the stress and worry of the day, the dread of leaving felt like it was being washed away as his hands became more demanding, his mouth pressing against mine with more intensity.

He was leaning into me, pushing me back onto the bed and his hands were sliding up my torso and a knee was pressed in between my thighs.

It was extremely tempting to stop thinking, let him work his magic and have a few hours of pleasure before I was exiled to the next galaxy for heavens knew how long, but I needed to know what had happened after I'd left the meeting.

I twisted my face away from his and asked the burning question.

'John, John…'  
'Anna, can we not talk just yet?' he asked me, his mouth still against my neck.  
'Oh, John…' I lapsed back into silence, but caught his face in my hands and looked into his eyes, kissing him back.

He pulled away, looking into my eyes for a long moment before speaking again.

'I don't want you to go, Anna.'  
'You think I do?'  
'No, I know you love it out here, hell, I can't imagine going back to life on Earth. I want to stay out here and keep exploring, keep fighting the Wraith and keep discovering new and awesome things about this place.'  
'I want to stay out here too, the technology I get to work with here is centuries more advanced than anything I'd get to work with in the real world.'

He lowered his head onto the pillow next to my head, supporting most of his weight on his elbows so that he didn't crush me, and spoke into the pillow, his voice muffled.

'God dammit I am the worlds biggest idiot.'

Color me confused.

'John, you're not an idiot. Hell, McKay tells me that you qualified for Mensa.'  
'That may be the case, but I'm still an idiot.'

I decided to remain silent for a while, give him some time to collect his thoughts and see what he had to say.

After a minute he rolled to the side and propped himself up on one elbow, looking down at me, his other hand tracing circles on my stomach.

'I already apologized for what I said, didn't I?'  
'Several times.'  
'I still don't feel right about it.'  
'And I know that you didn't mean it. We all had cabin fever, hell, Ronon almost decapitated McKay, even Teyla lost her temper and slapped you that afternoon.'  
'Anna, I said that it was your fault Kevin and Lawrence were dead.'

It was pretty hard to not respond to that, but I did my best until I let out a breath from between my teeth, it came out as a hiss.

'I know you did, and I know that you don't believe that, John. You apologized the second you said it, right before Ronon smacked you down for saying it. He actually offered to hold you down while I punched you.'  
'He did? I don't remember that part.'  
'You were pretty dazed, I think, you hit the floor damn hard.'  
'Did you take him up on that offer?'  
'Uh, no. But I did sleep in Teyla's room for a couple of nights.'  
'I remember that part. That part sucked.'  
'You'll also remember that McKay shouted at you for a good two hours after, calling you just about every name in the book for making such a dumb accusation.'  
'Yeah, I remember that, too.' He looked a little ashamed and I decided that I was sick of the guilt tripping.  
'So what was said after I left?'  
'Well, I threatened to quit the Air Force and come back with you.'  
'That didn't work.' I deadpanned. There was no way that anyone, let alone Elizabeth Weir, would take him seriously about any threat he made to leave Atlantis.  
'Yeah, I didn't think that one through very much.'  
'Ya think?'  
'So I asked McKay what the hell he thought he was doing, and he told me that you cloud my judgement. Unfortunately, Weir agrees.'  
'So, I'm going back to Earth. I'll get to see you, what, in a year? Maybe?'  
'You're going back to Earth. But I'm not going to stop until I figure out a way to get you back out here.'  
'Oh, John, come on, I'm not that special. There's nothing-'

He cut me off with a hard, deep kiss.

'Don't ever say that you're not special, Anna Mackenzie.'

Twice in a matter of minutes he'd rendered me speechless. But this time, instead of feeling tense and guilty, I allowed myself to relax as he kissed me again, pulling me on top of him and proceeding to distract me thoroughly.

'We've got twenty four hours before you're leaving, and I just told Elizabeth that I'm unavailable until after you're gone.'  
'How did she respond to that?'  
'She's not happy, but I pointed out that I'm actually on suspension thanks to the IOA, anyway. Lorne's in charge, I don't even have a radio and I don't really care.'


	23. Chapter 23

I had fifteen hours until I was going to be leaving Atlantis - the preparations for the dial to Earth were being made down in the control room, the entire city was abuzz with activity - most of the personnel who had come out on the Daedalus were heading back to Earth via the Gate rather than on the spaceship, except for a bare-bones crew, just enough people to keep the ship flying a straight line.

John and I had pointedly not left my quarters since we'd had a definitive answer about my leaving, and had refused visitors outright as they'd knocked on the door.

We heard a scuffling at the door and I realized that it was McKay messing with the controls – although he stopped rather hastily when John announced that he was naked and would greet Rodney at the door as such if he continued.

'Okay, okay, but Elizabeth wants to remind you that Anna's departure isn't optional, Sheppard.'  
'I know its' not. Go away.'  
'Well you've got fifteen hours until we dial-'  
'GO AWAY RODNEY.'

Yeah, that was both of us.

'Fine, I'm leaving, but Weir has given me permission to break in if I have to.'

We ignored him at that point, but I did have a giggle to myself when John got up a minute later, in the buff, and stepped over to the door to listen.

'He's still there.' He told me. 'I can hear him messing with the crystals.'  
'You could make good on your threat.' I teased him, making him blush.  
'Toss me my shirt, will you?' I reached down and picked up the nearest black t-shirt to toss towards him, John caught it deftly, covering the important parts with the material and opening the door to glare down at an open-mouthed McKay.

'I warned you, Rodney. We know we've got fifteen hours and we intend to spend it alone. Go away.'

McKay just sat there, rocking on his heels and doing a remarkably accurate impression of a goldfish, while John reached for the controls and closed the door in his face.

'Here's hoping that got rid of him, for a while.' He told me, loping back over to the bed and stretching out next to me, leaving the t-shirt draped over his hip as he leaned in to kiss me.

Truth be told, we spent most of the time we had talking, John telling me about his life before Pegasus, including his ex-wife Nancy and the fact that he hadn't spoken to his father in years. I told him about my parents' deaths and my life at college, life with my two brothers and the life we'd lived with a father in the French Foreign Legion – I'd spent my childhood being home schooled in parts of Europe before we'd made our move to the continental US so we could go to high school in Austin, Texas. The three of us had been born in New York, so we were US citizens, but we'd learned three languages from birth and still didn't have an accent that you could easily pin down to a particular geographic location.

'That would explain why you sound so southern and your brothers sound almost British.'  
'That would be it – they tended to be a bit more introverted than me, I think it's the twin thing, but I had heaps of friends in Texas.'  
'And then you went away to college and, independent of each other, all ended up involved in the Stargate program.'  
'I think it might be a bit more serendipitous than that - the powers that be probably saw that we all had similar backgrounds and training, realised that our parents had died and decided that we were a closed enough ecosystem that we'd sign a nondisclosure agreement without hesitation.'  
'And likely disregard it at the drop of a hat when talking to your siblings, so you all got bought in.'  
'Pretty much.'  
'You know, I think that's my favourite thing about being out here. I don't have to censor myself about work.'  
'Well, considering that technically every minute we spend out here is work...'  
'And I'm working with the people I'd complain to anyway-'  
'Exactly.'  
I stretched out on the bed and looked at him sideways, deciding that it was now or never, and I might as well ask the question that had been bugging me since the minute he'd invited me to his quarters to watch a DVD with him.  
'John-'  
'Oh, no,' he interrupted, looking up at the ceiling and covering his face with his free hand.  
'John, you don't even know what I'm going to say.'  
'I know that whenever a woman says my name in that tone of voice it's never a positive thing.'  
'Maybe you've just had bad experiences with women in the past.'  
He considered that for a moment before looking down at me and giving me a small smile.  
'Can I ask my question, now?'  
'Go ahead.'  
'John, why did you pick me?'

His eyebrows knitted together and he sat up a little, looking down at me properly.

'What do you mean, why did I pick you?'  
'Okay, then, why did you wait until I'd been on this base almost nine weeks before even talking to me?'

He sighed before answering. 'How honest do you want me to be?'

I considered that for a moment.

'Use your best judgment, John. I think you know me well enough to gauge how truthful you should be.'

He lay back down and put his arms behind his head, and stayed that way for almost a minute before rolling onto his side and tracing a finger along my hairline.

'Before I tell you anything, I need you to understand something.'

'Okay.'

'I don't ever remember feeling this way about anyone, ever. Over the last couple of weeks I've been thinking about… us… and how I've felt about women in the past.'

I stared at him for a long moment, unwilling to interrupt him while he was on a roll, albeit an unsteady one. He was looking down at me, his head propped on his hand, and after a long moment of silence he abruptly buried his face in the pillow next to mine.

'God-dammit why the hell is this so hard…' he muttered into the foam, barely audible.

I considered my options, but decided to keep quiet and let him gather his thoughts. It took him almost another full minute before he turned to face me, speaking quietly.

'I don't want to tell you about why I first started pursuing you because I think I might be falling for you.'

'Oh-'  
'But I want to be honest.'  
I paused, considering, and before I could lose my nerve, nodded.

'I knew that picking you would annoy McKay the most.'

'What?' I knew that pissing Rodney off was part of his motive, but the primary reason he'd pursued me? I wasn't sure what to make of it. I drew back, as far as I could in the narrow bed, and felt my eyes widen.

'McKay told me that he'd put you onto night shifts after you laughed at me. He seemed proud of it. I knew that if I made your night shifts more interesting it would get up his nose.'

'Let me get this straight. You started hitting on me, just because it would annoy McKay.'

He buried his face in the pillow again and groaned, before twisting his face again to look up at me.

I couldn't help myself, I cracked up laughing.

'What?' he demanded, sitting up, indignant.

'This is just so funny… and so typically male.'

'What do you mean, typically male?'

'My brothers do crap like this all the time. Alex likes a girl, so Drew hits on her just to spite him. Hell, I' pretty sure that the only reason either of them passed the twelfth grade was because they're so competitive.'

'You mean, you don't care?'  
'No, not really.'

'Oh, thank God.' He settled back down next to me and smiled, sheepish. 'I overthink things, sometimes, don't I?'

'I think we all do.'

A few hours later I woke up, realised I was hungry and poked John in the ribs. He was still asleep and muttered something indecipherable as I sat up and searched for some clothes. I'd barely pulled my t-shirt on when I felt an arm snake around my waist and was pulled back until I was sitting in John's lap.

'And where do you think you are going?' he asked, voice gravelly with sleep.

'I was considering getting something to eat.'

'You know, that's not a bad idea.' A loud growl from his stomach punctuated the sentence.

'And you know that once we leave this room we won't be allowed back, because I have to leave in… five hours.'

'What? How long did we sleep?'

'Seven and a half hours, by my watch.'

'Damn. I haven't slept that long since… since before I was in the Air Force.'

'So, can I get dressed and go to the mess?'

'In a minute.'


	24. Chapter 24

'We're dialling Earth in ten minutes.'  
'We know, Rodney.'  
'So you have to get down to the Gate room, now.'  
'WE KNOW, RODNEY.'  
'No need to get all snippy about it, geez, I was just making sure that you knew-'  
'GO AWAY, RODNEY.'  
'Fine, fine.'

McKay's footsteps echoed down the hallway and I looked over at John, sitting cross-legged at the end of my bed while I packed the last of my things into a duffel bag. As it was I to be selective about what I took back with me, the trip back to Earth was a one-way journey, but it was strictly take-what-you-can-carry, whereas my outward trip on Daedalus had allowed significantly more baggage.

John had been helping me pack, but a few things I'd intended to take back with me, things he'd been helping with, had mysteriously gone missing. My laptop, the t-shirt I'd been wearing the night of our first 'date' and my bright green notebook were set aside on my desk in a neat pile while the hand-stitched quilt I had bought with me had somehow migrated from my own quarters to the end of John's bed.

'I'm keeping those.' He pointed to the pile on the desk.  
'Why?'  
'Because you're only going to be back in the Milky Way for a few weeks at most, there's no point in you lugging it all back and forth more often than you have to.'

I rolled my eyes at that and finished packing the last of my things, snagging a black shirt from the pile of clothing next to John and shrugging into it.

'Oh, I guess that's a fair exchange.' John commented – I looked down at the shirt I'd picked and realised it was several sizes too big for me and smelled rather strongly of John's aftershave. I just shrugged and rolled the sleeves up to my elbows, buttoned it over my chest and made sure the collar was laid flat.

'Come here.' He caught my hand and pulled me over to the bed again. 'How much trouble do you think we'd get into if we missed the dial?'  
'I think Elizabeth might kill you.'  
'She already tried that once, albeit with an alien consciousness imprinted on her brain, but I'm not sure I want to risk it again. Okay, come on, let's get you up to the control room.'  
'I'm keeping the shirt.' I told him, tugging at the collar as John got to his feet and grabbed my backpack on his way to the door of my quarters.  
'And I'm keeping your laptop and that quilt, so I'd say we're square.'

When we got to the control room the rest of the crew heading back to Earth was lined up, waiting for the dialling sequence to start. John led me into the (somewhat) controlled chaos with a hand on the small of my back, my backpack still slung over his shoulder. My brothers, at the back of the group, turned when we came in, Andrew took the backpack out of John's hand without saying a word.  
'Begin the dialling sequence.' Elizabeth called from the control room, and the chevrons around the Gate lit up as the inner circle began to spin.

'I'm going to miss you.'  
'You'll be back before we know it.'  
'You promise?'  
'I'll call in every favour I can think of.'  
'That sounds like a start.'  
'Trust me, Mac, I'll have you back as soon as I can manage.'  
'I'll see you in six weeks, then.'

He leaned over and kissed me just as Elizabeth's voice came over the loudspeaker, confirming that the wormhole was stable and ordering the group to start making their way through, once Stargate Command had confirmed that they were ready for us.

'Six weeks. I can handle six weeks.' He told me, turning and watching as the last few people went through and McKay, standing next to the Gate with his tablet, gesturing at us impatiently.  
'I better go.'

John walked with me towards the event horizon, his fingers entwined with mine and shot a nasty look at McKay, who was making an impatient clucking noise at us as we approached.

'We've got thirty seconds left, Sheppard, hurry it up.'  
'I'll see you when I get back.' I told John, ignoring McKay's sniping and turned to face the event horizon, still not entirely comfortable with stepping into it.  
'Take a deep breath, you'll be fine.'  
I smiled and stepped forward just as John spoke again.  
'I love you.'

My momentum carried me forward, so I couldn't stop even if I wanted to, but I did turn and see John's face just as I crossed the threshold of the Gate – he smiled at me and I opened my mouth to reply, but I was already inside the wormhole. I felt John release my hand and a moment later my boots hit the steel ramp at the foot of the Gate inside Cheyenne Mountain.

'I love you, too.'

The only problem was that I was speaking to a dissolving event horizon, and John was several million light years away.

I seriously doubt that he heard me.


	25. Chapter 25

**A/N: This chapter and the following couple carry an episode tag for 'McKay and Mrs Miller' – with my timeline it was the most convenient way to get Anna back to Atlantis (with her qualifications) before the ZPM gets depleted during Project Arcturus.**

**As of the end of this chapter the rest of the story is completely AU with virtually no connections to the series proper - as you will see early in 26.**

**A big thank-you to all of my readers, reviewers and alerters and THANK YOU ALL so much for being so, so very patient with me during the 9-month hiatus. I promise I'll try my best not to abandon this story for so long again, either that or I'll provide a clear-cut ending.**

**And to those of you who are reading my other fics, I am working on those, the White Collar ones in particular. I'm hoping to have new chapters of both of those up within the next couple of weeks.**

Chapter 25.

I'd been back on Earth for two weeks, sleeping on the sofa in the house my brothers shared out near the airport in south-east Colorado Springs. There was a third bedroom in the house, but I was resistant to the idea of settling in on Earth and the boys were using it as a storage space, anyway.

I'd had three encoded e-mails from John, one attached to each data burst from the Atlantis base. They were short, but sweet, and each was signed with "X – John." There was nothing about his missions or what had been going on with off-world relations, he was abiding by all the protocols and only telling me about everyday banalities – how he'd got in a lucky shot when sparring with Ronon and the Satedan had four stitches in his eyebrow, as well as a surlier attitude and was refusing to eat with the rest of the team until the wound healed. There was some gossip from around the base, too, McKay had finally worked up the nerve to ask Katie Brown on another date and this one, to everyone's shock, hadn't been an unmitigated disaster. Lieutenant Cadman sent me her regards, and was helping John to call in favours in order to get me on the personnel list coming home to Pegasus on the next Daedalus run, due to leave Earth in a week.

I had ten or so hours before I was due to start my afternoon shift at the lab inside the mountain when I got a phone call from Colonel Samantha Carter. I sat up on the sofa when the phone rang and did my best not to sound like I'd been pulled out of a deep sleep when I recognised the number.

"Dr Mackenzie, I need you up here early, today."  
"Uh, Colonel, you know I don't have a car, right? Andrew won't be home for another four hours, so I really can't-"  
"I'm sending a car to get you – they should be arriving in about twenty minutes. Grab your gear and be ready – you might be up here for a couple of days."  
"Oh, okay Colonel Carter. See you soon."

I stared at the handset for a moment, unused to Colonel Carter being so brusque, but shrugged it off and got up from the couch, digging in my knapsack for a pair of khakis and a uniform shirt.

I'd barely gotten out of the shower when the distinct sound of military-types knocking came from the front porch – I shimmied into my khakis and made my way through the house as I hooked my bra together and pulled my Atlantis-issued uniform shirt over my head, opening the door with one hand and tugging the hem down with the other.

"Dr Mackenzie?" The airman who greeted me was fairly heavily armed, and there was a sleek black Lincoln Town Car parked on the kerb behind him.  
"That's me."  
"Colonel Carter sent me to get you."  
"Okay, jut let me grab my gear bag and I'll be right with you."

I left the door open and the airman stood there, hands clasped behind his back as I scooped the last of my Atlantis-issued tops out of the laundry basket and shoved them into my duffel bag, snagged my tablet computer and shrugged into the long-sleeved black BDU shirt of John's that I'd been wearing day-in, day-out since I'd returned to Earth before heading for the front door.

"You have everything, ma'am?" the airman asked, and I ran through a mental checklist before glancing at his nameplate and chevrons, noting his rank before responding.

"I think I do, Captain Mannes." I paused and considered what I'd just said, one hand on the doorjamb as I picked up my keys out of the bowl next to the door. "Hang on, Captain? Why on Earth did Colonel Carter send a Captain to pick me up?"  
"I'm actually here at the request of General O'Neill, ma'am."  
"General O'Neill?"  
"Yes ma'am."

I shrugged and closed the door behind me, dropped the keys into my backpack and zipped it up as I led the Captain across the lawn towards the idling car. Somehow he beat me there and opened the back door for me, holding out a hand to take my bag and closing the door as I slid onto the black leather seat.

I was buttoning John's shirt when I realised I wasn't alone in the car.

"Dr Mackenzie?"

My head snapped up and I immediately recognised the man beside me.

"Oh, General! I'm sorry!" I hurriedly patted my hair down and tried to remember if I'd brushed my teeth before glancing at myself to make sure that there wasn't something like a bra strap showing.

"Don't stand on ceremony because of me, doctor."  
"I'm sorry, General O'Neill, you startled me."  
"Well I guess I should apologise, too."

The General lapsed into silence as I tried to surreptitiously fasten the last couple of buttons on the shirt while the car pulled away from the front of my house.

We were on Academy Boulevard before I found my voice again – General O'Neill is a rather intimidating man and I wasn't sure of how to phrase my inquiry.

"Uh, General?"  
"Yes, Dr Mackenzie?"  
"Can I ask why you're the one taking me up to the mountain?"  
"Because Colonel Carter asked me to."

I paused, thinking about the many things wrong with that sentence, but didn't comment on it. From the time I'd spent in Atlantis I'd learned that many of the Air Force protocols, within Stargate Command, were ignored. The chain of command was followed (albeit loosely) but many of the officers regarded the SGC as a separate entity, with its' own hierarchy and organisational structure, largely governed by experience and who had been off-world the most times. I knew that, for instance, Dr Daniel Jackson was about as far from military as you could get, but was still among the most highly regarded personnel of the operation.

"Okay, then, why did Colonel Carter need me up at Command so early? I'm not due to start my shift for another-" I checked my watch, "-nine hours."  
"The Colonel recently received a copy of a math proof submitted to the University of… somewhere. California, I think. She thinks it could be the key to unlocking a serious power generation issue on Atlantis, and wanted someone who's spent some time out there to take a look at it with her. Apparently you're the only person in this galaxy with the expertise and background to be able to understand what's going on."  
"Oh. Okay."  
"What exactly is your background, Dr Mackenzie?"  
"Oh, well, I have a degree experimental physics, but I'm an electrical engineer, by trade."  
"Trade?"  
"I pulled apart my first alternator when I was nine and rebuilt my cell phone to run on solar power one weekend when I was bored. My doctorate is in electrical engineering."  
"So if we're dealing with a potential power source, you're the go-to girl?"  
"I'd like to think so; I helped streamline the power systems while I was in Atlantis, as well as doing a complete redesign of the interface between some of the ancient tech and the newer laptops we took out on the last run."

The General nodded, but I could tell from the partially-glazed look in his eyes that he really had no idea what I was talking about. I'd heard that Jack O'Neill was a man of action rather than science, so I changed the topic.

"I also upgraded some of the weapons systems. Ronon Dex let me have a look at his handgun and I'm pretty close to replicating it – the thing uses kinetic energy and it's practically impossible to run out of ammunition as long as you keep on moving."  
"Sounds… cool."

I had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing, for a Brigadier General this man certainly had a, light-hearted, I guess, approach to the intricacies of his command.

The Lincoln took a sharp turn and I was thrown sideways, almost into the General's lap, but he caught me and righted me with a wry smile.

"Now, now, Doctor, from what I've heard there's a man waiting for you back in Atlantis, I can't have you throwing yourself at me."

If almost landing on Jack O'Neill's knee wasn't embarrassing enough, the fact that he (apparently) knew about my relationship with John was enough to set my cheeks on fire - I felt certain that I must be the color of a tomato.

"Sorry, General, I guess I should put my seatbelt on."

"Might help - no inertial dampeners in a Lincoln."

I strapped myself into the seat and tried to relax, but O'Neill's mention of my 'man waiting in Atlantis' had set my nerves on edge. Why had the General been told about our relationship, unless John had called in one of his favors with O'Neill himself? I tried not to think too much on why O'Neill knew about John and I, and thankfully we were almost at the base before he spoke again.

"I heard that McKay might be called in on this one - you've worked with him before?"

"He was my direct supervisor back in Atlantis, in fact, he was the one who requested I get transferred back to Earth."

"Oh, right, after that incident with the shield generator."

"Yes." I said quietly.

"Well, don't be too upset. We've all blown up a planet or two in our time, it's not like McKay has a clean slate, he destroyed an entire solar system last year."

"Yes, I heard about that, that was right after I joined the SGC."

"An uninhabited solar system, but still. Pretty irresponsible."

"Here's hoping he doesn't do anything like that, again."

"I think that's why Carter wants you in on this one - apparently the math proof has something to do with the same power generator project that he blew up."

"Project Arcturus? But that was totally unstable, I mean, drawing power from our own subspace is just irresponsible! We could cause a tear in the fabric of existence!"

"Huh. Carter said the same thing when she heard about his little accident. Here we are - come on, I can skip us through most of the security checkpoints." The General got out of the car and I followed him, Captain Mannes handed me my bag with a friendly smile and I grinned back, hooking it over my shoulder and following O'Neill towards the entrance to the base, digging out my ID as I did.

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

"We really need Mrs Miller for this one, Colonel." I told Colonel Carter later on that afternoon, having spent a few hours going over the proof she'd received from a professor at UCLA. "I mean, she wrote it, and I can understand it, but identifying problems would be a lot easier if we had the mind behind the original equations with us."

"I know, I know. I've spoken to her, but she's resistant to the non-disclosure agreement."

"Some people are, I know I don't like the concept of math becoming proprietary information, owned by the government. But then again, being involved with Atlantis has kind of shifted my perception of what is need-to-know and why some things are best kept confidential."

"Like the Goa'uld, the Ori or the Wraith?" Carter asked.

"Exactly. Can you imagine the panic if people knew about these creatures that can suck the very life out of you? Or parasites that can control your body? Let alone what the Priors can do."

"Well, not many people would believe us, for a start..." Carter seemed a little amused at my voracity, but I didn't let that stop me.

"Well, Colonel, if you'd told me two years ago that I'd be traveling through sub-space, faster than the speed of light, and working in another galaxy in a city that is actually a giant spaceship, I probably would have laughed in your face." Carter nodded at that, biting her lip.

"I've got to admit, Dr Mackenzie, if someone had told me while I was at the Academy that one day I'd treat stepping into an interstellar wormhole and traveling to other planets as 'just any other day' I probably would have laughed at them, too."

After a little more discussion about the relative absurdity of our day-to-day jobs we eventually turned our attention back to the solid facts, the physics proof that Jeannie Miller had written and attempted to figure out how to make this hexagonal peg round enough to fit the hole in the Atlantis power issues.

Three hours, four cups of coffee and two interruptions (one from Dr Jackson and his shadow Vala, the other from General O'Neill, who seemed to be wandering the complex trying to avoid a stack of paperwork in his office) we finally had to admit defeat.

"When is the next check-in from Atlantis?" Colonel Carter muttered to herself, turning her attention to a nearby console to query the schedule.

"Uh, tonight. In about four hours, I think." I supplied. Not that I was keeping track – I just had an alert programmed into my cell phone.

"We need McKay. I'll have to ask Weir to send him out."

"What if he can't solve the problem?"

"Then he'll go to the source and get her to help us."

"What? Why?"

"Well, Jeannie Miller is his sister."

There were few things that Carter could have said that would have shocked me more, but after another look at the math I realized why the handwriting was vaguely familiar – she made her 5's and 7's the same way McKay did and there was something about the equations that flowed the same way Rodney's logic did.

"You already spoke to her, didn't you?"  
"Yep, and she's been cleared by the Pentagon but isn't signing the non-disclosure agreement."  
"Well, maybe McKay can convince her."  
"That's what I was thinking. Come up to the commissary and we'll grab something to eat before the dial – I'll talk to Dr Weir when they call and see if they can't send him out sometime today."

I followed Carter out of the lab and down a couple more levels, and spotted one of my brothers and went to join him while Sam took a seat with Dr Jackson and Vala.

"Hey, Andy."  
"Anna, how did you get up here? I thought I was driving you up today?"  
"Colonel Carter needed some extra help with a physics proof we got sent from UCLA, it's part of a project to help fix the power problems in Atlantis."

"Someone at UCLA is helping with the power issues in Pegasus?"

"Not exactly, the author sent it to her old physics professor and he forwarded it to a friend in the Air Force, eventually it made its' way to Carter and she realized that it could be the solution to an exotic particle problem we're having."  
"Okay. Sounds complicated."

"This is why I'm the physicist."  
"And I'm just Air Force."  
"No such thing as 'just' Air Force, Drew. Especially not as part of the Stargate program."  
"Good point. I did almost get zatted this morning."

"Where were you?"

"Oh, just downstairs, one of the new recruits was being trained with the Zats and was holding it upside-down, he shot himself and tensed up as he went down, kept pulling the trigger and took out half of his team We were just lucky that it was a modified weapon, no fatalities."

"Sounds like fun."

"Oh, yeah. Totally. Want some cake?" Alex pushed his dessert towards me - it was a slice of lemon cake with passion fruit frosting so I grabbed his fork and took a bite.

"Man, I didn't realize how much I missed lemon cake."

"Missed it?"

"My boss in Atlantis is fatally allergic to citrus; we're not even allowed to bring orange juice into the labs."

"Oh that would suck."

"It's not too bad, but sometimes I miss lemonade."

We chatted about Andy's day as I finished the square of cake, glancing over at Colonel Carter every few minutes until she caught my eye and jerked her head in the direction of the exit. I thanked my brother for keeping me company and followed her into the hallway.

"Atlantis will be calling in four hours – I'm not sure I want to know how you knew that – and I'm going to ask Dr Weir to send McKay through so he can convince his sister to help us with this proof. In the meantime, I'm going to try and get some sleep, and you're off the clock until the activation."

I thanked her and returned to the commissary, clapped my brother on the shoulder and asked what he was up to for the afternoon.

"I've got physical combat training, if you want to come watch."  
"What exactly does that entail?"

"Well, usually Teal'c beats the crap out of us one or two at a time."  
"Sounds like combat training in Atlantis, except it's Ronon who delivers the beatings back there."

"So, do you want to come watch?"

"Hey, it's always entertaining watching someone else get beaten up."

I walked with my brother to the gym, and found when we got there that Teal'c had more than me for an audience – apparently Vala liked to watch the sparring sessions, too, and enthusiastically patted the seat next to her when I came in.

"Hi, Vala." I took a seat next to her as she stretched, cat-like, and offered me a copy of Vogue magazine from the pile next to her.

"Who gets you these?" I asked, flicking through it without really seeing what was printed on the pages.  
"Daniel got me some, and one of the nurses has a subscription. Do you have one of these?" She held out her magazine, indicating a page with an American Express ad on it.

"Yeah, that and a Visa. Although, they might be close to expiring – I haven't used either of them in a while."

"They're money, right?" I nodded and her enthusiasm seemed to increase tenfold.

"How do you get them?"

"Well, you need income, and a birth certificate. I don't think you'd be able to get one, not without a lot of help from some of the higher-ups."

"I think Daniel has some of these, but he keeps them in his pockets. He'd never let me use his, though."

"You know, as an employee of the Stargate program, you could probably get an Air Force issued AMEX." Vala seemed to be thinking this over when an irate-looking Daniel Jackson poked his head into the gym and rolled his eyes, before storming over to us.

"Where have you been?"  
"In here. Not annoying you, as you requested."  
That stumped him.

"Oh. Okay. Who's your friend?"

I held out a hand to introduce myself.

"Dr Anna Mackenzie."  
"You're part of the Atlantis expedition?" he asked, clearly recognizing the patch on the sleeve of John's shirt.

"I was, Dr McKay sent me back a few weeks ago after the incident with the shield."  
"That was you?"

"Well, it was me, McKay and two under-qualified engineers who screwed up the power sequencing, but I took most of the fall for it because I was unconscious when we got back to Atlantis."

"That doesn't seem fair."

"Well, it's not really. But I've been helping Colonel Carter with something that might get me back out there."

"Really?"

"Yeah, we think that we might have found the solution to the power generation problem."

"That would be… great."

"I know, if we can get this thing to work then we can send the ZPM that's powering Atlantis back here, and it'll be a heck of a lot easier to go from one galaxy to the next."

"Does that mean we can go visit?" Vala asked, suddenly extremely interested in our conversation.

"It means that it'll be easier to come and visit, if it works. It'll put Pegasus a single Gate dial away rather than a three-week spaceship ride." I told her, and her attention abruptly switched to Dr Jackson as he seemed to ponder this, before pulling himself up onto the bench next to Vala.

"I really want to come out to Atlantis, but I can't get clearance for that much time at the moment, we're still trying to find this weapon that will supposedly stop the Ori from taking over this galaxy."

"Huh. I wonder how they'd respond to the Wraith." I asked,

"Maybe they'd wipe each other out!" Vala suggested, entirely too enthusiastically.

"That would just be far too convenient." Daniel sighed, before changing the subject. "Why are you two down here, anyway?"  
"My brother Andrew is sparring with Teal'c in a few minutes; I used to watch John sparring with Ronon all the time."

"John?" Vala's attention abruptly snapped from the Vogue she was perusing, suddenly she was focused on me like a laser.  
"Sheppard." I supplied, and she raised a questioning eyebrow at Dr Jackson.

"As in Colonel Sheppard?" Jackson asked.

"Yes."

"Oh. Oh!" Something seemed to click in Dr Jackson's mind and he narrowed his eyes at me. "You're helping Sam with the Project Arcturus matter bridge?"

"We spent the morning trying to fine-tune it, but we need some help and the author of the proof that we're working on is Dr McKay's sister."

"Rodney McKay?" Daniel asked, pushing his glasses back up his nose. I wasn't aware that McKay was so infamous, but apparently Dr Jackson had come across him sometime in his travels.

"Who's Rodney McKay?" Vala asked.

"He's a physicist, head of the science team out in Atlantis." Daniel supplied, and Vala immediately lost interest, returning to her magazine.

Daniel was thoroughly distracted from his next question a moment later when Teal'c walked in, followed by at least 3 SG teams, including my brother, all dressed down in black BDU pants and plain t-shirts. Teal'c took himself to the centre of the mat and after a moment gave a subtle hand signal to one of the teams - the three men attacked simultaneously and less than twenty seconds later they were all on the floor, with Teal'c standing in the centre, a the barest hint of a smile visible as he watched the men get back to their feet and retreat to the benches.

It took almost two hours before the SG teams were willing to admit defeat, Teal'c had barely broken a sweat but all of the humans were panting and at least two of them were bleeding from small wounds where Teal'c had been too quick with the staff. Andrew was one of the few who seemed to be able to stand up under his own power, the rest were either leaning against the walls or slumped on the floor, panting.

"What do you think, sis?" Andy asked, running a hand through his damp hair and looking over to where Vala was napping with her head on my leg and her feet in Daniel's lap.

"You already know that I think you're insane for even trying to take him on, but you were also mental enough to spar with Ronon, so there's no talking to you."  
"Hey, I didn't do too badly against Ronon."  
"You got four stitches!"  
"I did better than half of the marines that day."  
"Barely."  
"Fine, whatever, be like that. Come up to the mess and grab a snack with me?"  
"Snack?" Suddenly Vala was awake and sitting up so fast she almost head-butted me.

Colonel Carter found me, five minutes before Atlantis was due to dial in, sitting in the mess with Vala, Daniel, Andrew, Teal'c and the rest of Andrew's team.

"Dr Mackenzie?"  
I jumped to my feet as Colonel Carter came in, as did Andrew and his team, snapping to attention.

"Guys, come on." She raised an eyebrow at SG-7 and they took their seats again, somewhat sheepish. "Dr Mackenzie, the dial-in is due soon, I'd like you to be with me in the Gate room when Dr McKay gets here."  
"Okay, cool." I got to my feet and followed her to the elevator, twisting my hands together as we descended to level 28, flicking my fingernails against each other as the Colonel and I entered the Gate room. Carter spoke to a couple of the airmen on guard duty while we waited and I began to chew the inside of my lip as I got more impatient, almost biting through it when the Gate suddenly activated and the top chevron lit up, sending the ring spinning as a voice called 'Offworld Activation' and the red lights throughout the facility began to flash while the dialing sequence finished.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26. 

"I've just sent Colonel Sheppard to find him, we'll dial back in an hour and send them through. Weir out."

_Them?_ I tried not to get my hopes up and failed, pretty dismally. Surely she wasn't going to send both Sheppard and McKay back to Earth at the same time? I mean, I know they're only two men of a four-hundred-strong expedition crew, but they were pretty important as far as personnel went.

The event horizon dissolved and Colonel Carter grinned at me.

"Looks like we'll have some visitors this evening, Dr Mackenzie. I hope you don't mind having an extra body at your place for a couple of nights - we don't have a spare cot here, except in the infirmary, and Sheppard got pretty annoyed last time he had to sleep in there."

"No, I don't- wait, what?"

"Daedalus has been delayed coming back, there were some issues with the hyper-drive and it won't be heading back to Pegasus for another week, until we've fixed the problem. Colonel Sheppard will need a place to stay for that week."

"Oh, okay. I should probably ask the guys if they mind."

"Isn't the other Dr Mackenzie still off-world?" Colonel Carter asked, making me think about the schedule the boys had posted on the refrigerator.

"Yeah, Alex is with SG-12 doing some translations… and I was going to be taking the Camaro home tonight, anyway, because Andy's going off-world for a week."

"Sounds like you're pretty organized." I gave Carter a sharp look as she said that, suspicious that I'd missed an undercurrent of… something… but dismissed it when she seemed intent on the computer screen.

"I guess that'll be okay." I murmured, leaving the control room to go and find my own computer, wanting to double-check the boys' schedule, unwilling to believe that both of my brothers would be off-world for the next couple of days.

"The SG-12 mission is running long. Of course." I muttered to myself, sitting in the commissary and checking the e-mail that I'd received from Alex that morning during his team's check in. He'd apologized for the delay and told me, in the same e-mail, what the combination for his locker was in case I wanted to take the RX-8 instead of the Camaro that night.

I tried, and failed, to suppress a nervous laugh – other than the 24 hours before my departure back to Earth I was rapidly realizing that John and I hadn't actually spent an extended period of time alone… the time in lockdown on Atlantis hardly counted, we'd been incarcerated with the rest of his team. The rest of our time in Pegasus had been snatched where we could find it, twenty minutes here, half a night there in between John's missions, my lab shifts and any emergencies that happened within his command or down in the labs.

If we managed to get two whole nights to ourselves, uninterrupted, on Earth, it would be nothing short of a miracle.

"I'll need you to help McKay and I with this proof, if he's okay labs you assisting us." I almost jumped out of my seat when Colonel Carter addressed me, jerking me out of my reverie.

"Yes, Colonel."

"And Colonel Sheppard's got a debriefing with the Generals, plus a physical before he'll be allowed to leave the base, so he won't be able to leave straight away."

"I know, Colonel."

"You also know, Anna, that you can call me Sam, if you like." She told me with a smile, and I grinned back at her.

"I wasn't even sure that you knew what my first name was, Sam." I sat back in my chair as she took the seat opposite me, a sly half-smile making me a little uncomfortable.

"Well, I could keep calling you Dr Mackenzie, but seeing as I work with your brother, too, it gets a bit confusing."

"Alex works with you?"

"Well, he works with Daniel, and Daniel gets me to work in his lab to keep Vala occupied so that he and your brother can get things done."

"That sounds about right. We were watching Teal'c sparring with some of the teams before and Daniel came hunting for her, he seemed, a little anxious, I guess, because he hadn't seen her for a couple of hours."

"She has a habit of going missing and causing… problems."

"Vala? Cause problems?" I may have laid the sarcasm on a little thick, but Sam still laughed with me.

"There's a reason Daniel likes to keep tabs on her; she wreaks havoc and seems to have little regard for the wellbeing of others. Oh, and check your wallet before you leave, you might be missing a credit card if you're not careful."

"I haven't carried a wallet or purse since I went to Atlantis; I think I may have let one of my credit cards expire, actually."

"Yeah, that's not uncommon. Is your mail getting sent to your brothers, or your folks?"

"It's getting sent to the boys, but they just open everything - it's all addressed to Dr A Mackenzie, there's no differentiating between what's for Alex and what's for me." I told her, deciding not to address the whole 'dead parents' thing at that moment. It didn't seem right, the conversation was light and I didn't want to drag it down right before we had to work together for a few more hours.

Sam opened her mouth to ask another question when the klaxon sounded and the red lights began to spin.

"INCOMING WORMHOLE - ATLANTIS IDC." Came over the loudspeaker, and I got to my feet, racing Colonel Carter to the Gate room and standing behind her, to her left, as the detail in the room lowered their weapons and Dr McKay came through the event horizon with a backpack in his hand.

I barely registered Rodney, because a second later John came through and after a cursory scan of the room and a nod of acknowledgement to Carter, he grinned at me and jogged down the ramp, catching me in a hug even as McKay addressed Carter in his usual brusque fashion.

"What has my sister done now?"

"Nice to see you, too, McKay."

"Yes, yes, greetings, salutations etcetera what has she done?"

"Come with me and I'll show you. Dr Mackenzie, my lab, ten minutes. Sheppard, the Generals are expecting you in the conference room then, too."

"Yes, ma'am." Sheppard told her, still not putting me down or breaking eye contact, grinning like an idiot as Carter led McKay out of the Gate room, leaving us alone with just the guard detail who were actually beginning to file out.

"I missed you." he told me, slowly lowering me to my feet as I looped my arms around his neck.

"Missed you, too."

"Good to hear. So, ten minutes?"

"Yep. Ten minutes in one of the most secure Air Force bases on this planet."

"So, lunch?"

"What time was it when you left Atlantis?" I asked, checking my watch which was next to his right ear.

"Around noon, I was just going to find a sandwich when Elizabeth told me I was being given a month's worth of leave because I hadn't taken a vacation since being assigned to Atlantis. I kind of forgot to eat anything while I was packing." He kicked the duffel bag that he'd dropped at his feet and I noted that it was a little light for a month, but remembered that three weeks of that month would be spent traveling back home.

"It's almost six PM, here." I told him, realizing that I'd spent the entire day on the base and hadn't noticed the lack of windows once.

"So, dinner then."

"Sounds great."

Then, finally, he kissed me.

For a long moment my mind was totally, blissfully blank, his fingers tangled in my hair and the other hand dropped to between my shoulder blades to keep my upright while I locked my wrists at the back of his neck and held on for dear life.

Unfortunately, we had an audience.

"Hey! Get a room!"

We broke apart, and I felt myself turning scarlet even as John turned to look up at the control room, indignant. Then he realized who was behind the microphone and gave a smart salute.

"Yes, sir, General O'Neill."

"Debriefing in ten minutes, Sheppard. And Carter tells me that the good doctor is due in her lab then, too. Don't keep her waiting."

"No, sir."

"Go on, then."

"Yes, sir."


End file.
